A study shows that PCB contamination is a major factor that disrupts thyroid function and structure.  PCB contamination remains rampant in the American food supply.  Your thyroid is metabolically and adversely affected by PCBs at doses far lower than those that cause cancer.  PCBs are a major environmental factor helping cause the obesity epidemic.  Chlorella is one nutrient that helps to bind up PCBs and get them out of your body.

It is a common assumption, repeatedly proven false, that changing numbers with drugs somehow produces health. Sure, it is better to have lower blood pressure – naturally. As blood pressure rises it is often an attempt to deliver oxygen and nutrition in a more concerted effort due to a wide variety of possible health issues. Simply lowering blood pressure with drugs is somewhat like letting the air out of a balloon, the underlying problems often worsen. This study shows that what Western medicine considers the ideal blood pressure range for drug use is actually associated with increased mortality risk. Of course people who simply ignore their blood pressure problems are even at higher risk. But, aggressively driving down blood pressure with drugs can no longer be considered a therapy that extends life.

There is a huge difference between having decent blood pressure because you are healthy and having decent blood pressure because you are drugged. Correcting blood pressure problems takes some work. You need to lose weight, improve aerobic fitness, eat well and take various supplements that support circulation and heart function. This is the path to better health and a longer life.

It is now common knowledge that low-grade excess inflammation is behind virtually every disease of aging. The obvious contradictions don’t add up to health. Pulling strings further, as I explain in this article, leads to an understanding as to why antidepressants are associated with an increased risk of breast cancer, brain damage over time, and a significantly increased risk of early mortality. This is information the pill pushers at Big Pharma would prefer you never understood. 

The study showed that the use of anti-inflammatory pain medications, such as ibuprofen, aspirin and naproxen, reduced the “effectiveness” of the most widely used type of antidepressants. A combination of an animal study and a large scale human data evaluation led researchers to conclude that the typical response rate to SSRIs of 54 percent dropped to 40 percent. 

“The mechanism underlying these effects is not yet clear. Nevertheless, our results may have profound implications for patients, given the very high treatment resistance rates for depressed individuals taking SSRIs,” notes Dr. Jennifer Warner-Schmidt. “Many elderly individuals suffering from depression also have arthritic or related diseases and as a consequence are taking both antidepressant and anti-inflammatory medications. Our results suggest that physicians should carefully balance the advantages and disadvantages of continuing anti-inflammatory therapy in patients being treated with antidepressant medications.”

It appears that Dr. Warner-Schmidt is trying to say that if you want to help your brain pain you may need to live with your physical pain – a testament to the ineptitude of Western Medicine’s drug-based therapies. The real story is what isn’t being said or explained; as almost nobody would take an SSRI antidepressant for any length of time if he or she understood what was actually just discovered.

These researchers noted that SSRIs provoked a release of pro-inflammatory signals in the brain, TNFa and IFNy, which were blocked by the anti-inflammatory drugs. TNFa (tumor necrosis factor alpha) is an inflammatory cytokine produced by immune cells and by glial cells in the brain in response to a problem. For example, overweight people make far too much TNFa in their inflamed white adipose tissue, which can travel up to the brain, cross the blood brain barrier, and induce brain-inflammation resulting in the cognitive decline and depression that is so closely linked to obesity. IFNy (interferon gamma) is a potent activator of an immune-related response, typically to viral infection or a tumor. It specifically boosts the production of highly inflammatory nitric oxide (iNOS).  This compound is essential for an immune system battle and is highly inflammatory to healthy nerve cells and to the cardiovascular system.

So how on earth could taking these brain-inflammatory SSRI antidepressant drugs help a person feel better mentally?

The BDNF Response to Health and Trauma

BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor) is one of the most potent healing compounds in your brain. Adequate BDNF is needed for brain plasticity, cognitive intelligence, optimal learning, positive mood, etc. In other words BDNF is your brain rejuvenation compound. BDNF can prevent and treat Alzheimer’s disease.  BDNF is even active outside your brain wherein it helps your muscles burn fat!  A lack of BDNF sets the stage for addictive behavior², including compulsive overeating³. Those with the lowest levels of BDNF have the worst depression⁴. 

You can activate BDNF with aerobic exercise, even consistent moderate aerobics.  Aerobics in older adults has been shown to stop brain shrinkage⁵ and boost BDNF while preventing depression.  Many nutrients⁶ facilitate the production and release of BDNF (DHA, pantethine⁷, acetyl-l-carnitine⁸, zinc⁹, blueberries¹⁰, curcumin¹¹, niacin¹², DHEA¹³, and likely many others). Nutrients work very well to maintain BDNF levels in the face of high levels of stress¹⁴, as any of the prior study links will explain. To properly activate BDNF also requires proper function of thyroid hormone¹⁵, which is problematic in many people with depression.

BDNF production in your brain occurs within glial cells (astrocytes). It is very important to understand that BDNF production can be activated by multiple signals coming into the glial cells, not just one type of input. In other words, we have glial cell activation in response to healthy behaviors like exercise and good nutrition. This is part of the ongoing process of keeping your brain rejuvenated and in tip-top working condition. In animal experiments following stroke, voluntary exercise¹⁶ helps produce high levels of BDNF and nerve regeneration whereas forced exercise does not.

BDNF is also activated during times of brain injury, to repair the injury¹⁷. Nerve cells do not split and divide like other cells in your body. Rather, nerve cells must either fix themselves or have a strategy to develop new nerve growth; both processes require BDNF. Thus, one way to stimulate BDNF is to injure nerve cells.

It is this latter strategy that SSRI antidepressants utilize – in a manner never intended by Mother Nature. The details of this rather bizarre method of operation are explained in a detailed review article¹⁸.  In brief, one way SSRIs are supposed to work is by enhancing the flow of serotonin, an effect that would be felt immediately upon taking them. However, it is well recognized that an additional mechanism is in play, as for many it takes several weeks or longer before their mood seems to improve. This latter effect is due to the SSRI medication progressively accumulating in glial cells, inducing a highly inflammatory toxic response, and triggering the release of BDNF.  Now you can understand why taking anti-inflammatory drugs would interfere with SSRI function.

Understand that such a strategy to boost BDNF production is highly problematic. It can just as readily result in suicide or worsened depression. A person who is depressed is lacking BDNF. This means their credit cards for BDNF have been maxed out trying to cope with the stress in their life. In essence, SSRI antidepressants are like getting a new BDNF credit card from a loan shark. The interest rates are astronomically high, i.e., the loan is given in the form of excitotoxic brain cell injury.  Talk about robbing Peter to pay Paul. This is a very short term remedy, at best.

According to the review article above, the method of BDNF activation by SSRI antidepressants utilizes a specific gene signaling pathway called TrkB (Tropomyosin-associated kinase). The overexpression of this particular gene signal is known to cause breast cancer¹⁹. It is not that BDNF causes breast cancer. Indeed, just about every nutrient listed above that boosts BDNF production naturally also protects against breast cancer. This is the difference between nutrition and drugs. Nutrients and exercise act in harmony with the brain to bolster its natural function, while nourishing and protecting other areas of the body. In this case SSRIs manipulate an injury recovery strategy to boost BDNF by actually poisoning brain cells. This strategy was never intended to be used on an ongoing basis. It is quite clear that the TNFa activation of BDNF²⁰ can have deleterious effects on the nervous systems and may not help BDNF production at all. The science provides a direct link to cancer, especially breast cancer.

Breast Cancer and SSRI Use

Human data regarding SSRI use and breast cancer is highly controversial. The reason is due to Big Pharma-funded “scientists for hire” who crank out studies that say there is no risk. And this is only one aspect of the blatant and fraudulent misrepresentation of SSRI risks and benefits. 

This issue came front and center in an April 2011 open access article published in Plos One²¹ that reviewed 61 studies regarding breast and ovarian cancer and antidepressant use. The overall data showed an 11 percent increased risk for breast and ovarian cancer associated with all types of antidepressants. The association between the SSRI type of antidepressants and cancer was stronger than for any other type of antidepressant.  All SSRI studies but one showed an increased risk of female cancer. Additionally, this April 2011 study also evaluated the financial ties of study authors to the companies that make antidepressants.  Shockingly, none of the 15 researchers with financial ties to the industry found any risk for breast/ovarian cancer in the studies they conducted, whereas 43 percent of the researchers without industry ties found clear evidence of cancer risk. The authors called for more research to determine the exact nature of this risk, since 10 percent - 15 percent of women are on these drugs. Don’t expect the FDA to do anything meaningful any time soon.

Another angle is that women with breast cancer are often put on SSRI medications because they are depressed about their health. According to a February 2010 open access article published in the British Medical Journal²², the SSRI antidepressants block the effectiveness of Tamoxifen causing up to a 91 percent increased risk of death from breast cancer in a 2.5 year period of follow-up. 

The Disturbing Picture of the Cruel SSRI Scam

The SSRI literature cover-up extends far beyond attempting to hide or negate the link to breast cancer. The fraudulent scam goes to the heart of the matter- whether the drugs even work very well at all. 

In 2008 the New England Journal of Medicine exposed the extent of the antidepressant deception. The great majority of negative SSRI studies were never published. A whistleblower who had worked at the FDA and was familiar with the data forced the data to public view. It showed 37 studies the FDA considered positive were published, whereas only three negative studies were published. Of the 33 studies the FDA considered negative or questionable, 22 were not published, and 11were published with spin to look positive when they were not. This made antidepressant studies appear 96 percent positive in the literature, when in fact the studies were only 51percent positive.  In fact, as Newsweek magazine explained in January 2010, that “benefit” was hardly any different than the placebo.

On the other hand, rather extreme side effect data from taking SSRI antidepressants continues to pour in.  In November 2008, it was shown that anyone over the age of 50 taking SSRIs on a continual basis had double the risk for fractures, as excessive serotonin production directly blocks new bone formation. In March 2009 it was reported in a large study of women that antidepressant use, independent of other variables, was linked to a statistically increased risk of sudden cardiac death.  In December 2009 researchers reported that in 136,000 postmenopausal women taking SSRIs there was a 45 percent increased risk of stroke of any kind, a 32 percent increased risk of mortality²³ from any cause, a 212 percent increased risk of a hemorrhagic stroke, and a 210 percent increased risk that the stroke damage would be so severe it would cause death.  As mentioned at the beginning of this article, the increased rate of inflammation in the brain, especially activating highly inflammatory iNOS in response to INFy, is a clear mechanism that could cause these dangerous strokes in the brain.

The issue of cardiovascular, breast cancer, and mortality adverse effects from SSRIs is far from settled. The industry will do everything in its power to pay scientists to publish studies that state or imply there are no problems. The battle will go on for years, with massive litigation expenses hanging over the heads of Big Pharma. The FDA, as always, is missing in action. However, to the person taking an SSRI to feel better, it is clear that the drugs work by inflammatory mechanisms that are not healthy over the long haul and possibly not even in the short term. SSRIs are a credit card at best; one day you will need to pay up.

While I am well aware of people who feel symptomatic improvement from taking antidepressants, this information serves as a wake-up call. Hopefully it will help such people find alternative solutions such as exercise, weight loss, a better diet, and dietary supplements that can help boost BDNF, improve stress management skills, and get nondrug psychotherapy as needed. Getting off SSRI medications requires that you work with your doctor with the long term goal to be off medications because you don’t need them.  I have first hand knowledge of many people who have been injured by SSRI medications, including suicide. The fact that the SSRI medications, while helpful to some, are clinically proven to be no better than a placebo, represents one of the great con jobs of all time on the unsuspecting American public. Maybe Congress should investigate this issue instead of wasting time and taxpayer money on Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens.

At that time I outlined the scope of this major threat in three articles: 
Senator Durbin and the FDA Viciously Attack Dietary Supplements,
The FDA’s Scheme to Reclassify Nutrients as Drugs, and
FDA Propaganda Attempts to Destroy the Dietary Supplement Industry.

Many of you took action along with millions of other Americans. 

Ironically, their attack managed to do something that hasn’t happened since the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act was passed in 1994.  It mobilized the entire supplement industry to act on the same page to defeat this threat.  While the battle is far from over, the FDA has temporarily backed down, realizing they were facing massive consumer objection and a barrage of lawsuits from supplement companies.  I don’t think they will mount another attack until after the election and most likely only if Obama wins. 

However, we must still be vigilant, as explained by Scott Tips at the National Health Federation (a preferred source for keeping up to date on reliable health freedom information). 

It is weird that so many Democrats in Congress literally hate dietary supplements, which is explained by their agenda to exert iron clad public health control over all your health options.  On the other hand, Republicans love Big Pharma, which gives dietary supplements the short end of the stick when push comes to shove.  Thus, the FDA is almost always problematic for the supplement industry no matter who is in power.  Since one-third of our nation’s dietary supplement production occurs in Morman-dominated Utah we might hope that Romney would be more supportive of the supplement industry, but he has no track record or policy statements on the topic.  Romney is getting money from supplement companies in substantial amounts.

Durbin has continued to attempt to undermine supplements at every opportunity, as recently explained in this article by leading health freedom attorney Jonathan Emord.  Luckily, the senator isn’t having much luck.  From the perspective of the dietary supplement industry and your access to safe and effective nutrients at doses that can actually help your health, he is public enemy number one. 

I conclude this update on this important topic by saying that for now the supplement industry has a little bit of breathing room.  I will keep all of you informed if something should occur that warrants your attention.

The study showed that statins, especially in women, cause fatigue and easier fatigue when they exert themselves (such as exercise). According to the researchers these effects can sometimes take a while to show up, indicating a slow and progressive deterioration in muscle and energy function over time. Some individuals may not recognize that their fatigue is coming from the statins, since it sometimes does not happen immediately. These researchers concluded that, “These unfavorable effects were not uncommon. These findings are important, given the central relevance of energy and functional status to well-being.”

It is hard to find individuals in such bad shape that the loss of energy is less of an issue than the severity of their cardiovascular risk. This means that 95 to 98 percent of the people getting statins should not be on them. Doctors want people on these for life—more than a decade. That makes no sense. Nor does it make sense to give statins to children or for any type of primary prevention.

I reported for years on a 1996 study showing that statins interfere with coenzyme Q10 production, increase the production of lactic acid by cells, and decrease the production of energy. This happens in everyone who takes them, to a greater or lesser degree. No rational argument can be made for a drug that causes energy loss.

Statins are now fully proven to make a person less active and more energetically feeble. If you want to live longer you need to exercise more often and improve your fitness and energetic conditioning. Statins are an enemy to that result.

These findings do not mean you should ignore a cholesterol problem. It means you should understand the red flag waving in your face and take steps to actually improve your health. In my article, The Five Key Things You Can Do to Lower LDL Cholesterol Healthfully, I cover the basics that apply to the majority of people with elevated cholesterol.

I often ask people, “What is the first word that comes into your mind when you think of the word, ‘antibiotic?’”  The correct answer should be poison.  If an antibiotic actually gets the job done, it works by poisoning bacteria to death.  Due to decades-long overuse of antibiotics by the medical profession, it now requires 50 times the dose of poison to kill bacteria compared to when antibiotics first came on the market.

The Z-Pak is popular because it is given as a five-day treatment, compared to 10 days for many other antibiotics.  Obviously, it has to be more poisonous.

“We use azithromycin for an awful lot of things, and we abuse it terribly,” said Dr. John G. Bartlett, a professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.  “It’s very convenient. Patients love it. ‘Give me the Z-Pak.’ For most of where we use it, probably the best option is not to give an antibiotic, quite frankly.”

The side effects of the increasing toxicity of antibiotics make them a remedy of last resort.  It is now proven that even one or two rounds of antibiotics can disturb the balance of digestive flora in such a way as to set a person on a life-long struggle with compromised health.  The benefits do not outweigh the risks for many common infection situations that are often viral in nature and do not respond to antibiotics. 

General fitness, a healthy diet, getting enough sleep, and good stress management skills are your basic strategies for healthy immunity.  Many nutrients help your immune system work better.  They can be used to boost you up when you are around sick people, at the onset of any symptoms, and to help out your immune system during a prolonged battle.

If you do get into a situation when you truly need to take an antibiotic then you need to protect both your digestive tract and cardiovascular system.  The basic strategy for your GI tract is friendly flora, taken at a different time of the day than the antibiotic and continued for at least one month following the antibiotic.  Other GI support may be needed depending on a person’s digestive tract issues and history.  Nutrients like grape seed extract and resveratrol are highly protective to the lining of your arteries and can be taken when an antibiotic is in your circulation so as to reduce the risk of the poisonous antibiotic setting off an undesirable inflammatory chain reaction that induces a major cardio event and possible death. 

The new study points out that those at the greatest risk for a problem are those with preexisting cardiovascular health problems.  However, even children are at risk for antibiotic injury, which in my experience is often damage to their brains and learning ability, in addition to serious digestive disruption.  Thus, these suggestions apply to people of any age should they need to use antibiotics.

Over the past few years it has been exposed that Big Pharma selectively and intentionally suppressed negative SSRI studies in a way that created a false picture of benefit for marketing purposes. This was combined with illegal off-label marketing.  Doctors began handing out SSRIs like candy, ignoring the emerging dangers that new science explains are quite significant. 

This new study is interesting because it did not deal with the marketing scam, but rather with a rather stunning side effect profile of SSRIs that is still not well understood by doctors or the general public. The researchers point out that serotonin is a molecule of evolutionary importance that influences many aspects of health.  Its natural balance and regulatory function are disturbed, not improved, by taking SSRI drugs. In keeping with my article of yesterday on bone drugs, I would also like to point out that one of the adverse side effects of SSRIs is bone loss.

The researchers also point out a long list of common side effects ranging from birth defects to early death in elderly patients.  Of particular interest is the fact that SSRIs actually damage brain function, making individuals who take them more susceptible to depression as a result of stress. The researchers review the new science showing that antidepressants cause brain cell damage and death, even reverting mature brain cells to an immature state that triggers neuronal death. 

People who think they need to take an SSRI should be actively repairing their health and boosting their brain health, while working with their doctor to gradually lower doses and eventually get off them. At this point it is unknown to what extent SSRI-induced brain injury may be permanent. Based on the newer nerve science, one’s brain has tremendous nerve rejuvenating powers if given the opportunity.  However, someone who thought they needed an SSRI in the first place already has issues and their path out of the muck is likely to require a higher level of consistency and patience, along with taking effective steps to bolster nerve and brain health.

This past week the FDA published a review of the bisphosphonate bone drugs in the New England Journal of Medicine.  To their credit, the review sought to understand whether or not bone drugs actually did anything useful over the long haul (six to 10 years) in terms of fracture prevention. This is the kind of study that causes Big Pharma to cringe, as they would much rather the FDA look at only misleading pictures of swollen bones that Big Pharma falsely claims are an improvement in bone density.  Indeed, if the standard for the use of drug dispensing were actually fixing a health problem, Big Pharma would be out of business.  The FDA review showed that in those with a baseline of significant bone problems, after six to 10 years, those not taking bone drugs (taking a placebo) actually had slightly lower fracture rates than those on the drugs (8.0 to 8.8 percent for placebo versus 9.3 to 10.6 percent for drugs). 

Doctors and Big Pharma expect women to take these drugs for the rest of their lives.  This FDA evaluation of effectiveness shows no benefit at all.  To the contrary, the FDA notes that the side effects of these drugs may be quite serious (rotting jaw bone, spontaneous fractures of large bones, and esophageal cancer).  Other common side effects such as joint pain, muscle pain, and atrial fibrillation were not mentioned by the FDA, although I have extensively covered these issues in previous articles like The Delusion of Bone Drugs.

The shortcoming of the FDA review was to ignore the fact that bone drugs never produced healthier bone even in the short term. In fact, the higher the dose, the more disorganized and chaotic bone structure becomes. Big Pharma has relied on two-dimensional pictures of swollen bones to claim better bone density – a smoke and mirrors fraud. The FDA gave them a pass on this issue. However, as I reported two years ago in my article Bone Drugs Proven to Cause Poor Quality Bone in Humans, two human studies proved conclusively that taking bone drugs for four or more years resulted in bones with inferior structural integrity.

The medical profession is running out of excuses for their gross incompetence. Remember, this is the same profession that forced women to take horse urine estrogen extract until they figured out they were causing far more health problems, including deaths, than they were preventing (they still hand out more than one billion dollars per year of this toxic form of estrogen.) The biochemistry of how excessive estrogen works, as well as how bone drugs work, has never been a mystery to anybody. The risks have simply been ignored by mainstream Western medicine.

There is no short cut to bone health. Bones require many nutrients for optimal health and rejuvenation. Bone health is also a direct subset of a person’s overall health.  In other words, more stress and inflammatory wear and tear, for whatever reasons, places a large burden on a person’s bone health. True solutions involve removing general sources of inflammation from one’s health by improving all manner of potential health issues, while at the same time using nutrition to specifically bolster bone health.

The research* is based on 161,808 postmenopausal women aged 50 to 79 years at 40 clinical centers across the United States.  The researchers are from the University of Massachusetts Medical School and Harvard Medical School.  In other words, this is mainstream Western medicine research.

Just as important as the study results is the bewildering press release.  It tries not to alarm anyone, puts a bizarre spin on the risks and benefits of statins, and suggests that you “be sure to talk to your doctor,” (the same person who has been poisoning you). 

The question is, how can the “benefit” of a drug that causes a disease known to drastically increase the risk of heart disease be good for long-term heart disease prevention?  The answer: It’s only “good” if you are trying to put children and healthy people (the new target market for statin idiocy) on these drugs.

Needless to say, the scholars at these prestigious think tanks could not figure out why statins cause diabetes.  They still haven’t quite figured out the basics of how the human body works and what statins are doing to it.

Let me give them a few clues.  Statins are anti-energy by core means of operation.  Any time you reduce the energy function of a cell you reduce the ability of that cell to burn calories as fuel.  This creates metabolic inefficiency and insulin resistance, with increased fatigue and eventual Type 2 diabetes. 

The medical profession cannot be trusted to make correct decisions for patients when its fundamental philosophy of treating numbers on paper with drugs is more important than the person in front of them.  Certainly some people are in difficult cardiovascular situations wherein the many risks of statins may be offset by a short-term benefit.  Taking statins short-term would give a person time to get their act together.  This type of situation, however, represents a small percentage of people on these drugs.  For the majority, the serious risks of developing heart disease or Type 2 diabetes outweigh the benefits.  Of course you would like better cholesterol numbers.  However, you want those improved numbers because you are healthy, not because you took a sledgehammer to the core system of survival in your body.  There is no shortcut to a higher quality of health.

The study is published in http://www.wellnessresource.com  Archives of Internal Medicine

Deen has continued to cook and promote her high-fat, high-sugar, disease-producing menu for the past three years, all the while knowing she had Type 2 diabetes.  “I made the choice at the time to keep it close to me, to keep it close to my chest,” she told USA TODAY in her first interview about the disease. “I felt like I had nothing to offer anybody other than the announcement. I wasn’t armed with enough knowledge. I knew when it was time, it would be in God’s time.”

That time has arrived, complete with a lucrative contract from Novo Nordisk to market the dangerous Type 2 diabetes drug, Victoza.  When asked about the financial relationship Deen said, “Talking about money is garish. It’s tacky. But, of course, I’m compensated for my time. That’s the way our world works.”

There is little doubt that this Southern cook has little understanding of her body.  Now that she is under the tutelage of Big Pharma she believes her problems were genetic and that her odds of getting Type 2 diabetes were the equivalent of Russian roulette.  “It’s about heredity. It’s about age, lifestyle, race. I’m the only one in my family who has it. My grandmother cooked and ate like I ate, and she didn’t have it.”

Big Pharma has apparently not explained the most basic of animal experiments to Deen.  When scientists wish to study a rat that is diabetic, but not genetically or drug-induced diabetic, they have to make it diabetic.  The common way this is done is to feed the rat a diet high in saturated fat and sugar and – presto – it has Type 2 diabetes. 

Scientists have wondered if it was the fat or sugar that was causing the problem, so they have studied each separately and discovered that either one causes Type 2 diabetes.  In the case of excess saturated fat intake, the fat marbleizes through body organs and clogs them to the point they can’t function.  In the case of excess sugar, such severe insulin resistance is produced that Type 2 diabetes follows.  This rat-inspired point is simple, eat too much saturated fat and/or sugar and you will be knocking on the door of Type 2 diabetes.  It is only a matter of how much abuse your body can tolerate.

In the case of Deen, she chose both the high-fat and high-sugar path.  Her sugar came courtesy of sweetened tea, which she has apparently stopped consuming. “That’s a big trick for a little Southern girl. I calculated how much sugar I drank in empty calories, and it was staggering. I would start drinking tea at lunchtime and drank it all the way to bedtime.”  And that was only a part of her sugar consumption.

Recipes drenched in excess saturated fat are her brand.  Her signature Lady Brunch Burger is a hamburger sandwiched between two glazed donuts.  Other celebrity chefs, such as Anthony Bourdain, have minced no words calling her “the worst, most dangerous person to America.”

Entering into this sad state of affairs is Big Pharma, who rarely misses a celebrity marketing opportunity.  Deen now takes the once-daily injection of Novo Nordisk’s Victoza.  Her partnership with Novo Nordisk is featured on the misleading website “Diabetes in a New Light.”  This relationship represents a new low for the treatment of Type 2 diabetes; the public is being given the advice of an unreliable, greedy woman and Big Pharma at the same time.  This is a public health outrage.

Victoza is associated with thyroid tumors and thyroid cancer.  You can develop severe pancreatic inflammation, which can readily lead to death.  This information is clearly displayed on the “Diabetes in a New Light” homepage so that when people start dying from following Deen’s advice they will not be able to sue Novo Nordisk, because in all fairness, they were warned in advance of the dangers.

The drug is a synthetic version of a natural substance produced in the beta cells of your pancreas called Glucagon-Like Peptide-1, GLP-1.  It stimulates your beta cells to make insulin.  When your body releases GLP-1 it lasts for 1.5-2 minutes before your body degrades it.  In other words, this is a powerful signal under tight metabolic regulation. 

The drug version of GLP-1 cannot be degraded by your body’s natural enzyme systems, thus instead of lasting for one minute or two it lasts for 13 hours.  This results in an abnormal stimulation of insulin by a pancreas that is already in a condition of high stress.  It is like forcing your credit card to have another $10,000 limit increase when you are already $5,000 over your limit.  The only way any person would ever take this drug is if they are deceived by propaganda, and listening to a Big Pharma-trained doctor and the latest drug pusher on the block, Paula Deen.  As an informed consumer you are now prepared for the upcoming Paula Deen marketing campaign and TV commercials.