May 8, 2012

Drug companies publicly claim they hire the most-respected doctors in their fields to teach other physicians about the benefits and risks of the companies’ drugs. However, an investigation by ProPublica reveals that Big Pharma hires hundreds of doctors who have been accused of professional misconduct, were disciplined by state boards, or who lack...

May 4, 2012

In 2008, Americans spent $234 billion on prescription medications—more than twice the amount they spent just a decade earlier.  One reason for this extraordinary increase in drug use is that physicians are prescribing more drugs to their patients. There is a reason that would explain at least a part of this dramatic increase in prescription peddling:...

May 3, 2012

The drugs your doctor prescribes can cause adverse changes in gene expression that persist long after you have ceased taking the drug. Pharmacoepigenetics is a four-letter word in the pharmaceutical industry. The term describes the epigenetic (gene reprogramming) effects of pharmaceutical drugs. There are numerous ways drugs reprogram your genes, and many of...

May 2, 2012

Skin cancer is now the most prevalent form of cancer. It is so pervasive that it is not usually included in the national cancer statistics that list “high-profile” cancers of the breast, colon, lung, and prostate. Melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, is notoriously chemo-resistant and radio-resistant and there are no known cures for invasive...

May 2, 2012

A friend of mine who is a Paleo mom-to-be wrote to me with a concern she had after reading a recent study that calls into question the safety of a maternal low-carb diet for the fetus. Scientists first began to suspect that the maternal diet influenced obesity risk in offspring back in 1976, when a team of scientists studied the Dutch forced famine of 1945—the...

May 1, 2012

Any cardiologist worth his or her salt would acknowledge that there is a growing need for new and better-tolerated therapeutic approaches to treating hypertension. Blood pressure-lowering drugs cause numerous adverse reactions that have been well-documented. Conventional medical wisdom holds that people diagnosed with hypertension should be prescribed at least...