Bad Medicine

Here's an excerpt from a beautiful eulogy Romney wrote for Beata. I think our old dog, Tuco, might miss her more than anyone. He’s REALLY old, seems out of it a lot, but when we were going to the vet before she died he was totally engaged and has been very clingy (which is exceedingly odd and not a trait natural to “Mr. Bitter”) since she did not come home.

For the past 9 years (minus one) Beata has been my friend, family, and love. She has never judged me for my poor culinary or film choices – or even been mad when I tell her not to bury her bones in the garden (because she always did it anyway). She never wanted anything more than to be loved and not abandoned. She was the cutest, sweetest, most loving little dog. My heart aches that I will never see her wag her body at me again, or get to cuddle on the couch with her while Edwards is on business trips. Edwards and I lost a vital member of our family last night, and Tuco lost his “girlfriend” who brought him back so much “psych”.

Anyway, this is a health blog so let’s get back to business. I didn’t do my homework on the medications she was taking post surgery, and this killed her. I figured—incidentally with the same rationale I used when I hurt my back and didn’t check on that medication—how bad can a couple of weeks of anti-inflammatory meds be? Bad, as it turns out.

What we have is the Vioxx scandal for dogs. The only reason we don’t hear more about it is that it’s for dogs, though it did make the Washington Post in this article:

Vioxx Debate Echoed in Battle Over Dog Drugs

And the medication that kicked it off, Deramaxx, is like candy compared to the one that killed B, Previcox. When I Googled it on the night she died I was shocked that EVERY SINGLE WEB SITE THAT WASN’T TRYING TO SELL IT WAS A WARNING OF ITS DANGERS. The net is littered with stories exactly like ours, of healthy animals seeing a vet for an injury and dying due to complications with the medication. Some of these pages also contain angry letters from vets (or perhaps pharmaceutical PR people but that’s another story) stating that slamming the medication would only serve to hurt other dogs. Well, at least it might hurt the ones that don’t die.

Being more of the scientific type, I dug into studies. Turns out even Merial’s (maker of Previcox) own studies on the drug are highly alarming. Most that they used were done on three day post surgery groups. In these groups many small dogs died (so it shouldn’t be used on dogs under 12lbs) and many had internal bleeding. Then there were some longer 180 days studies. In these many dogs died, almost all had side effects and internal bleeding. That is the POSITIVE research.

Then there are the FDA reports on drug safety. Here we see how Previcox has become safer through the years. In 2005 and 2006 it was killing over 10% of its users. Now it’s down to just over 1%. This is not a typo. How would you feel if every time you popped some ibuprofen there was a 1 in 100 chance that you’d die?

It’s not like we’re trying to cure an aggressive form of cancer where the patient would die without the medication. We’re just reducing some swelling. So why are vets shilling something almost certain to have side effects with a high risk of death? Even more so, why aren’t there at least strong warnings given to the customers? The answer, I suppose, comes right back around to Vioxx, which doctors continued to prescribe as it was killing thousands of people even though there were plenty of safe alternatives. Okay, that’s not an answer. An answer would be speculative so I’ll let you make one up. The only fact we know for certain is that it happened with Vioxx, it’s happening now with Previcox and Deramaxx, and, for those of you who don’t have pets, it’s still happening with other medications that are killing people.

Ironically that last article showed up the night B died. I will deconstruct it later this week. The point today is to warn you against the dangers of NSAIDS for both animals and humans. NEVER TAKE (OR GIVE TO YOUR PET) ANY MEDICATION THAT YOU HAVEN’T RESEARCHED AND ASSESSED THE RISK. Not even for something that seems innocuous, and not even for one day. Those in the medical field may call you alarmist (they often use analogies like “you aren’t qualified to understand the science”) but I call it being informed. And whether or not your information is “faulty” dead is still dead. You don’t need a degree to understand that.

pics: beata and tuco and, what we thought, might be one of HIS last trips to the coffee house where they were fixtures. mr. bitter is not happy. climbing won't be the same knowing b's not watching out for me.

Beata Romney Edwards (2001-2010)

Our youngest child, Beata, passed away tonight. She was the epitome of her namesake, angel; a perfectly well-mannered dog with a lovely disposition. For the past few years she has been my shadow. She would do anything that I asked of her, trusted me completely, and the only time I ever saw her confused was when I couldn’t cure her at the end. I miss her terribly.

The Straight Dope will go into mourning for a period. When I return I promise you a shitstorm. B died senselessly and, ironically, for part of the same reason that our country/world is in the health epidemic we are currently facing. Changing this has been my MO from the start but I’ve never been as personally affected. I guess you see, as advertised, the uncensored Steve on this blog, as compared to my work on our guidebooks and articles, but when I return it will be with a vengeance. If I said that I was mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore it wouldn’t be a cliché. I’m just getting warmed up.

But this is not the time to go into detail. Instead, I want to reflect on a life well lived. We can’t choose how or when we will die. Our only choice is to live as well as we can while we’re here and in this Beata excelled as well as any being I’ve known. She lived for each day. Not recklessly but with abandon. All she wanted was to be loved and for the people and other creatures around her (except gophers) to be active, healthy, and happy. And, when you get right down to it, these are the only things that really matter. She was beautiful through and through and will be missed by many.

Ueli Steck: The Swiss Machine

This week’s psyche was an easy choice once I saw that this video was posted. I saw the full version last week at the Reel Rock Tour and can’t recommend it high enough. Even Romney, not a fan of climbing films in general, thought it was super inspiring. There’s always someone who’s climbing at a higher level than the rest of the world in the mountains and, currently, it’s Steck.

It doesn’t really need an introduction, so I’ll leave you with: “I really like fanatical training. I’m not better than anyone else. I’m just training like hell.”

Enjoy!

To see the entire film check out the Reel Rock Tour dates.

Doper!

I’m a doper. A cheat. An un-American scallywag who has obviously put winning ahead of the principles of our greatest athletes. You know, folks like Roger Clemens, Marion Jones, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Wait, what?! Um, ok, never mind. Anyway, if I were subject to a drug test right now I would fail because I’ve been taking a legal substance that has recently been added to WADA’s banned list.

But here’s the rub: it does nothing. I mean, it’s complete garbage as an ergogenic aid. WADA claims it has some “anabolic properties” and, thus, they’ve banned something that’s been on the market for decades that has caused no great shakes in the performance world.

Early in the WFH I decided to dust off an old supplement strategy that I’d tried 20 years ago. It hadn’t worked then but I wanted to confirm that. One of these supps, Mesabolin, is actually a plant sterol called ecdysterone. It’s pretty common and shows up in a few plants. Anyway, I hit it hard, first with prescribed dosages and then with double that... and... nothing. Well maybe a little bit of gastric stress but not a tad of performance enhancement.

And now it’s banned, which I don’t care about at all except for the fact that it doesn’t work and I’d prefer it if WADA actually focused on things that are, well, doping and not some nutrient that you can get by eating completely natural plants.

So anyway, here’s the review of my WFH supplement strategies. Nada. I pretty well knew the argentine/pyroglutamate wouldn’t work because tests done on oral argenine have never confirmed what’s been done using injected argenine and I pretty well confirmed that. And now I've confirmed that ecdysterone does nothing, too. That is unless you are a competitive athlete. Then it will get you disgraced, turning you into a bitter scourge of society who’ll be bummed that you didn’t just suck it up and call Michele Ferrari and get on the real stuff so at least you could have gotten banned with some money in the bank.

The American Foodsaw Massacre

What if the scariest horror movie you’ve ever seen was taking place in your local market with everyday shoppers as hapless victims? Well I’m no conspiracy theorist but the case against genetically modified (GMO) foods is starting to look downright bone chilling. And even if monster movies rarely affect me I can’t help but start squirming in my seat at how this story is unfolding.

The results of Pusztai’s work were supposed to become the required testing protocols for all of Europe. But when he fed supposedly harmless GM potatoes to rats, things didn’t go as planned.

Within just 10 days, the animals developed potentially pre-cancerous cell growth, smaller brains, livers, and testicles, partially atrophied livers, and damaged immune systems. Moreover, the cause was almost certainly side effects from the process of genetic engineering itself. In other words, the GM foods on the market, which are created from the same process, might have similar affects on humans.

Yesterday Mercola published an article on veiled science surrounding GMO foods by Jeffery Smith, executive director of The Institute of Responsible Technology. Smith is no fan is the industry, having penned two books on the subject, Seeds of Deception and Genetic Roulette, so one may take his views as biased. But it pretty straightforward science that he’s presented and, let’s face it, the anecdotal evidence supporting GMO foods is not good. As they’ve become a more established part of what we eat we’ve gotten fatter, less healthy, and our estimated life span has decreased for the first time in modern history, all in spite of massive improvements in medical technology.

Irina Ermakova, a senior scientist at the Russian National Academy of Sciences, was shocked to discover that more than half of the baby rats in her experiment died within three weeks. She had fed the mothers GM soy flour purchased at a supermarket. The babies from mothers fed natural non-GMO soy, however, only suffered a 10% death rate. She repeated her experiment three times with similar results.

Dr. Ermakova reported her preliminary findings at a conference in October 2005, asking the scientific community to replicate her study. Instead, she was attacked and vilified. Her boss told her to stop doing anymore GM food research. Samples were stolen from her lab, and a paper was even set fire on her desk. One of her colleagues tried to comfort her by saying, “Maybe the GM soy will solve the overpopulation problem.”

To conjecture further, I believe it’s possible that GMOs are, eventually, going to become linked to the myriad of food allergies that have sprung up in the past generation. Take the recent case against gluten, for instance, where an Italian study showed examples of elderly people showing no signs of gluten sensitivity a decade ago (after eating pasta their entire lives) suddenly changing. Gluten is the latest rage but we’ve seen similar patterns with peanuts and soy (legumes), as well as many nuts, prior. Since the science used to support these diseases is often shaky (gluten labeling is not government regulated), it seems possible, perhaps even likely, that it’s because we’re barking up the wrong tree. Since GMOs were able to be patented in the 1970s food allergy numbers have skyrocketed so fast we don’t even have proper stats on them.

Epidemiologist Judy Carman used to investigate outbreaks of disease for a state government in Australia. She knows that health problems associated with GM foods might be impossible to track or take decades to discover. Moreover, the superficial, short-term animal feeding studies usually do not evaluate “biochemistry, immunology, tissue pathology, gut function, liver function, and kidney function” and are too short to test for cancer or reproductive or child health.

So who, you might ask, is the axe-wielding psychopath responsible for all this? As you well know this dude is hard to find. He wears a mask and hides out in (genetically modified) corn fields so dense you can’t even hear his chain saw idling. But as the plot thickens more and more evidence leads to a popular clique of characters.

When Ohio State University plant ecologist Allison Snow discovered problematic side effects in GM sunflowers, Pioneer Hi-Bred International and Dow AgroSciences blocked further research by withholding GM seeds and genes.

After Marc Lappé and Britt Bailey found significant reductions in cancer-fighting isoflavones in Monsanto’s GM soybeans, the seed seller, Hartz, told them they could no longer provide samples.

Research by a plant geneticist at a leading US university was also thwarted when two companies refused him GM corn. In fact, almost no independent studies are conducted that might find problems. According to a scathing opinion piece in an August 2009 Scientific American,

“Agritech companies have given themselves veto power over the work of independent researchers ... Only studies that the seed companies have approved ever see the light of a peer-reviewed journal.”

For example, if there was any negatives surrounding GMO production why wouldn’t it show up on foods labels? Only someone very popular would be able to stop this and Monsanto, and perhaps his good friend Dow, are pretty much the homecoming king and queen around here. Not only has Monsanto been able to keep GMO off of labels in the USA, it’s currently trying to force the European Union to eliminate it as well. If these things were ok, we must wonder, why wouldn’t they want us knowing about them? But then we find out Monsanto won’t serve GMO foods to their own executives. Lacking the charm to get us to drink their Kool-aid on our own, they’re trying to force it down our throats.

Good thing the movie’s not over. This rag-tag group of survivors has one, last, desperate plan. Unlike in a zombie armageddon, we have a choice over whether or not to have our brains eaten. As Dr. Mercola says “Together we CAN get GMOs banned from the US. Europe was able to do it over a decade ago without any government assistance. All they did was educate the consumers, and that was enough pressure on the food industry to drop their ploys.
If we band together as an effective army we will be able to do this. Please understand that the VAST majority of people in the US do not want GM foods, so this is an EASY battle to win. All we have to do is a bit of organizational work.”

So bust out your best evil-empire fightin' artillery and lock and load, or just click here for Smith’s Non GMO shopping guide. Remember the bad guys don’t always have to win.

50 To 50 To 50

Last night Romney reminded me that today began the 50 day countdown to my 50th birthday, which is going to encompass my entire 50th year. I knew this was coming as I’d had a lengthy discussion with Hans the other day as to why I wasn’t doing (postponing, more accurately) my planned challenge this year. But I hadn’t thought about 50 days to 50 and I should have, given that a decade ago 40 days to 40 was the one that really tipped the birthday challenge scale for me. So I guess 50 to 50 is a good place to start given that my 50th birthday challenge is going to incorporate the entire year, or 50 to 50 to 50; nuthin’ like nice round numbers as an excuse to concoct a good challenge.

So I’m up at 4:50 AM and commencing the challenge by writing and Tweeting. As soon as I finish this entry I’ll do 50 reps of some exercise to get it started. Here’s a quick rundown of what’s ahead:

The Big Challenge will happen on 11/11/11 and where I’ll “tie the room together” with an itinerary that pays homage to all of my California-based birthday challenges as I spend 50 hours roaming around Southern California via bikes, boots, and running shoes en route to 500 kilometers of riding, 50 kilometers of running, and leading 50 rock climbs 5.10 or harder.

The year will revolve around reversing the obesity epidemic and, hopefully, target childhood obesity a bit more than I’ve been able to given my job is writing diets and making exercise programs for adults. But even with my company’s success obesity rates are projected to be 75% of Americans by 2020. If we can get the kids we’ll get the parents, so I’d like to do more kid stuff this year.

Physiologically I want to convert power to endurance over the year. As my friends and The Straight Dope faithful know, an injury curtailed my endurance endeavors this year and I’ve been focused on training power and stability. Marcus (or Dr Marcus Elliott at P3) thinks it would be very interesting (he actually said impressive) if I could flip pure power to pure endurance over the course of a year, so that’s the goal. Challenges that revolve around one discipline only have always bored me somewhat, mainly because we understand those individual templates so well. My 40th was all about trying to do both. I’ve learned a lot since then so I’ll work with Marcus and see if we can find any scientific breakthroughs.

There will also be some challenges spread throughout the year, which I’ll announce on my actual birthday. The 50 days leading up to this are sort of a prep period to work on accountability and self improvement, so here’s what I’ll do:

50 new things . This is something cool a lot of other people have done on their birthday challenges. Each day I’ll try and do something new each day, be it eat, drink, learn, practice; so long as I’ve never done it precisely this way. I promise this won’t all be cocktails.

50 days of Twitter. I never Tweet but I’ll get in the habit by Tweeting my diet and exercise. Sure, this may be boring (certainly for me) but I’m asked constantly what I eat and what I do for exercise so, if you’re really interested, now all you have to do is follow me. Currently I'm doing a zig zag diet very similar to the Shakeology Cleanse.


pics: the crew during reed's challenge in 2000 and my crew today.

October

“…October is the best month for climbing. Who knows how many I have left? If I want to do something, I’d better do it now.”- Chris Sharma

Joe sending Big G from Joey Kinder on Vimeo.

After months of rehab and training I finally feel up to getting after it a bit. Life has a way of interfering with my objectives in an in-opportune way and, as October rolls around, both work and home life are a tad hectic. At Beachbody we’re developing four new workouts programs, revamping our entire supplement line, and at home we’re dealing with two convalescing dogs. Good thing I live in Utah, where adventure is practically out the back door. I’m looking forward to six to eight weeks of climbing as much as possible before turning my sights on next year.

The week’s psyche video comes from the psyche man himself, Joe Kinder. It’s actually not a very good vid but he’s climbing a route here in the Wasatch and references fall temps, so it seemed appropriate. Tomorrow is, to me, day one of the season and as I'm starring down the barrel at 50 I feel every bit as excited as I did 20 years ago. When one is motivated life is always good.