Chemicals and impotence
One of the better short stories dealing with alien invasions is The Screwfly Solution, written under a pseudonym by Alice Sheldon. It assumes aliens would find it too much trouble to use military force to wipe us off the face of the Earth. They would prefer to let us die out. Curiously, this builds on and anticipates many of our own uses of chemicals that induce impotence or infertility. Without any help from aliens, humans are doing their best to reduce their own numbers. One of the most common of the modern chemicals is Bisphenol A (BPA) which is used to harden plastic products and make epoxy resin. You will find it in hundreds of different types of container used to store or carry food. It's also used to coat the inside of drinks cans and to harden the plastics used in the manufacture of sports equipment, cars and some medical devices. In other words, it's hard to avoid eating food stored in it and touching things made with it.
There's now a small mountain of evidence out of China that workers exposed to high levels of BPA suffer loss of libido, erectile dysfunction and impotence. This adds to all the other evidence of health problems now being considered by the FDA including behavioural changes, early onset of puberty in girls, obesity and cancer. Next year, it's due to announce whether the use of BPA is to be limited in the US. The FDA already accepts that babies and children are potentially most at risk - a fact disputed by the manufacturers. Indeed, in many countries, baby bottles made with BPA have been banned. This latest evidence out of China is clear evidence of reproductive problems in adults. But, before panicking, we need to see the Chinese evidence in context. All these workers were exposed to significantly higher levels of BPA than would be encountered in the real world. No matter how many cans of soda and beer you drank, you would not consume the same amount of BPA. Nevertheless, BPA does leach into food and drink from its packaging. In November, Consumer Reports published the result of tests showing BPA in the majority of the brand-name canned foods on sale in US stores. This included juice, soups, vegetables and fish. According to industry experts, the evidence to date is no more than suggestive of a link between BPA and impotence. We will have to wait for the FDA to complete its review for the government's view.
Until then, men should seriously consider avoiding the use of anything made with BPA, and stop eating and drinking out of cans. You should consider switching to bottled beer. This is the precautionary principle. You avoid the potential danger until you have clear evidence it is safe. Once you have reduced your intake of BPA, this should reduce the risk of erectile dysfunction. If you do have problems, use cialis - now the leading brand in many countries. This comes in two different versions. One giving you thirty-six hours of sexual response, taken as needed. The other taken once-daily gives response round the clock. There is no better drug on the market for giving completely natural and hard erections whenever you are sexually stimulated. Buy cialis and find out why it has become the top brand.
The truth is finally here
Perhaps we were all misinformed. Was there really a report that the Earth was round? Did it come out about the same time as that mad suggestion the Earth goes round the sun? It gets so confusing about what is true and what is theory. Science is supposed to be ahead of the game but. . . All of which brings me to a key fact about the effectiveness of medical treatment. Since the beginning of time, a significant part of every successful treatment has been the so-called placebo effect. This is where the patient so strongly believes the treatment will work that any treatment will be successful. Even though the patient is given a completely inactive pill, liquid to drink or cream to rub on to the affected area, the patient is still cured. It is the classic demonstration of mind over matter. People simply will themselves better. For example, acupuncture is used as an anaesthetic for major surgery in China. Patients lie with their eyes open and needles sticking into them while surgeons cut them open. They talk about the weather with the nurses. In the West, there is recent research showing acupuncture to be successful even though needles are stuck into the wrong points in the body. All it takes is a strong enough belief that the acupuncture will be effective.
This is a simple way of saying a society must trust its doctors. If physicians are to command respect and so inspire confidence in the treatments they prescribe, they must be seen to be in touch with the latest science. Their words must be full of truth. If they seem out-of-date or behind the times, why should we trust them when they tell us to favor a particular treatment? People vote with their feet. When it comes to something important, we all choose to see the people who are thought to be the best in their field of expertise. We want the best. This makes the most recent pronouncement of the American College of Physicians all the more worrying. This October, they felt sufficiently certain of the science to be able to issue a general advisory notice to all their members. From now on, ACP members are to act on the basis that erectile dysfunction should be treated with viagra.
So, all you poor patients can relax now. You no longer have to wrestle with your consciences as ACP members prescribe vacuum tubes and hormone injections for your ED. All that uncertainty whether to follow this advice has gone. Your doctor will now officially be allowed to prescribe a little blue pill to resolve your problem. Have all these leaders in scientific thought been hiding under a rock for the last ten years? What are they thinking? How can it inspire confidence in the medical profession to make a formal announcement today about something patently obvious to the rest of the world for the last ten years? This is an incredible moment in time. Ladies and gentlemen, the truth has finally come in from the cold. It's official. Buy viagra with confidence. It is better than all the old hormone treatments and other silly pieces of equipment that occasionally appeared in the bedroom. Pop a pill and your ED is gone!
New research finds limits to the effectiveness of opioids
Once formed, habits are difficult to break. It always just seems easier to go on as you have before. This can become a serious problem when science gets in the way of the habits. If you look at the world of adverts in print and the media, you will see opioids recommended as the sure-fire drugs to use as painkillers, no matter what the pain. It carries on in the venerable tradition of the slogan, "Beecham's Pills cure all ills". The idea of a panacea - one pill to rule them all, as The Dark Lord of Mordor might have said - has been around since the beginning of time. This is fair game for the marketers to use when talking to the public, but the same thinking has entered the training manuals for the medical profession. Sit in lectures for student doctors and you will hear the same story that opioids are the first line of defense when it comes to moderate to severe pain. Once you have the source of the prescriptions in on the group think, the habit is almost impossible to break.
The monitoring and review process put in place after a drug is released into the market is designed to catch any unexpected side effects. If evidence of problems emerges, the FDA can require the manufacturer to change the warnings on the label or, in the worst cases, withdraw the drug from the market. But this monitoring process is not designed to catch the drugs that are ineffective. If no-one has an adverse reaction when taking it, no report is filed with the FDA. It's safe so who cares whether it works. All this brings us to the Cochrane Collaboration. This is a non-profit group where researchers sift through and analyze existing published medical research to see whether there are any consistent patterns - what might not be apparent in one clinical trial involving two hundred participants might be identified when you compile the results from fifteen different trials, each involving two hundred participants. Two recently published Cochrane Reports have concluded that opioids should not be routinely prescribed to patients even with severe pain from hip and knee osteoarthritis.
In both Reports, the independent conclusions were that the adverse side effects outweighed the benefits and that tramadol, as the leading opioid, was no more effective than the strongest NSAIDs. The first Report consolidated the results from ten trials involving a total of just over 2,250 participants and concluded that there was little pain relief and minimal improvement in mobility. With higher dosages, one in twelve participants experienced adverse side effects. The second report consolidated the results from eleven trials involving 1,020 participants and found little difference between the effectiveness of tramadol and the placebo. This leads to a somewhat controversial conclusion. That doctors should not routinely prescribe opioids for the treatment of hip and knee osteoarthritis. There should be a careful discussion of treatment options including weight loss, physical therapy and exercise, and a detailed explanation of all the adverse side effects to be expected. This new research does not change the general acceptance of tramadol as an effective painkiller. All it does is confirm that there is no such thing as one pill to cure all ills.
Why are the overweight more at risk of erectile dysfunction?
It's very easy to overdo stories about the risks of obesity. Indeed, those who are overweight grow increasingly angry at the growing number of scientific studies telling them how to live their lives. In this, there are parallels with the campaigns to encourage people to quit smoking. For years, the tobacco industry suppressed evidence of the link between nicotine and cancer, and disputed articles that tried to warn people of the risks. Today, even with the Surgeon General's warning on the packaging, current smokers resist laws that aim to limit smoking in public places. They see this as intrusive. Nevertheless, as with nicotine, so with obesity, there is increasingly clear evidence of the link between excess body weight and disease. For the purposes of this article, the link between erectile dysfunction (ED) and obesity is also clearly made.
The evidence collected from around the US shows that about 35% of all men over the age of 50 are likely to experience ED at some point in their lives. Both obesity and the resulting lack of physical exercise significantly increase the risk. There are three reasons for this. The first is the change in the level of testosterone as the body gains weight. The second stems from the deposit of plaque on the lining of the arteries. The initial condition is called atherosclerosis - a hardening of the arteries and a restriction in the flow of blood. In turn this increases the blood pressure and can lead to heart disease. Finally, the overweight are more likely to become diabetic. As diabetes progresses, there can be nerve damage which first appears as ED.
To be straightforward, the remedy is easy. If you lose weight and increase the amount of physical exercise you do, this is likely to improve your general health and, even more importantly, relieve the ED. So here is another article telling you to modify your lifestyle. Except that, for many men, the ability to get or maintain an erection is a vital part of their self-esteem. If something is interfering with this, some action is called for. In its early stages, the standard ED medications will usually produce results. But, if left untreated by diet and an exercise routine, only levitra will maintain sexual satisfaction. This drug is the most powerful of the three ED medications and it will usually produce sufficient hardness to achieve penetration and ejaculation. But there will come a time when even levitra will not help. When you reach this stage, the choice has become stark. You need to diet, take drugs to reduce your blood pressure and cholesterol levels, and exercise. As your weight begins to fall, levitra will restore erections. If you maintain the weight loss, you can probably return to the weight and level of health where an erection will come without the need for a drug. So, if you are overweight and suffering from ED, buy levitra to restore sexual activity and start losing weight.
Never lie about having acne
Medicalization is a wonderful newish word. It means the process of taking a natural condition and convincing people that it's a disease to be treated and cured by the medical profession. Once a condition is medicalized, the pharmaceutical industry can sell drugs, doctors and hospitals can charge fees. The cash registers just keep on ringing up the profits. Once this happens, there's a kind of bandwagon effect. The condition suddenly becomes a lot more serious. It's now a disorder or disease. For health insurance companies, it's a pre-existing condition.
Now there's a funny thing about health insurance companies. They are never shy about coming forward with new reasons for not paying out on their policies. One of their classic excuses is the "disclosure" rule. The law sounds quite reasonable. If you are sitting in your office and never get to meet the person applying for a health plan, you have to rely on the honesty of what the person says when you decide whether to write the policy. It's a sad fact that some people are less than honest when they apply for policies. They forget the heart problem and declare themselves fit and healthy. Insurance companies therefore need the right to rescind the policy - to cancel it if the applicant failed to disclose information needed to assess the risk.
So now we come to the case of Otto Raddatz who, courtesy of his sister, became a famous victim after his death. She testified to a Senate committee about what happened and the story, in suitably dramatic form, was later picked up by President Obama in support of his campaign for healthcare reform. The facts are easy to state. Here was a man lining up to get surgery for cancer. The hospital appointment was booked when, surprise, the insurance company decided to rescind the policy. Why? Because Otto had failed to disclose the fact he had acne as a teen! This was a serious pre-existing condition and likely an indicator he would get cancer later in his life. His failure to disclose it justified rescission. Well, fortunately, his sister was an attorney and she got the state attorney general on the job. Six weeks later, the insurer reinstated the policy and Otto got his operation. This gave him six more years of life.
It's sometimes odd to see how the world works. The medical profession goes to great trouble to convince everyone that acne is a disease. The pharmaceutical industry sells us accutane which is an almost always effective treatment, clearing the skin and restoring beauty during the first period of treatment. And then insurance companies accept this medicalization and require people applying for policies to disclose acne as a pre-existing condition. This is a logical and predictable progression. If doctors say acne is a disease, it must be a pre-existing condition and everyone should disclose it when they apply for health insurance! Do not be deceived! The Illinois attorney general does not fight for everyone. Otto was lucky that his sister was an attorney with the right political connections. So never lie about having acne! The risk of rescission is real. And while you have acne, rely on accutane, the sure-fire way of solving the problem.
Happy birthday! Ten years old!
When viagra was just a gleam in its Daddy's eye, no-one expected the extraordinary effect of its coming into this world. Not that this was the coming of the Antichrist or anything bad. In fact, it's been quite the reverse with suffering men suddenly restored to the full power of their youth - as young gods, they date and enjoy life to the full all over again. So to celebrate the tenth birthday of this revolutionary pill, it's time to let our hair down and have some fun. Here are some of the latest stories, ripped from the headlines and designed to raise a smile.
We're going to start off in South Carolina. It's the night before Halloween so, to put yourself in the mood as a sixty-six year old deputy assistant attorney general, you pack your car with sex toys and those little blue pills, pick up an eighteen year old stripper and head for the cemetery to celebrate whatever it is you celebrate on the night before Halloween. Presumably, he was just starting to practise those ghostly groans when the police cruisers surrounded his car. Apparently, the local residents were tired of sex between the gravestones and had persuaded the police to mount guard. Little did they expect to catch this leading Republican at his wiccan best. The humor lies in the man's name. Have you noticed how often the letters "r" and "n" often look like an "m". Well this guy needed pills as he was Corning, but ended up going into police custody before he was done.
Now we're off to Miami International Airport. Imagine this is a slow day. The guys at customs had almost nothing to do. And then they noticed strange boxes weighting in at fifty pounds. So because they are bored, they decide to have a look see and find each box full of pills. The color is blue and there's that magic mark suggesting they have found a lifetime supply of happy sex and don't need to buy viagra anymore. For those of you interested in the details, fifty pounds translates into 21,600 pills - that's enough to keep you going for 59 years assuming one pill per night. Except, when these pills were tested, they turned out fake. What a disappointment.
So there you have it - a small celebration of viagra's birthday. The little blue pill that revolutionized sexual healing in ways that Marvin Gaye could not have imagined. So, as most men discovered, "Just one pill, that's all it took, yeh!" for those of you old enough to remember The Hollies.