I am writing here about the recent New York Times article about the lack of efficacy for Turmeric in medical studies done in Canada in some surgical patients. What they had actually studied was Curcurmin in their patients with the presumption that curcurmin is THE active ingredient in turmeric responsible for all it’s beneficial effects. The same mistake has been made in medical studies before wherein a natural product in this case turmeric is pooh-poohed when an ingredient that makes up less than 5% of the whole natural product -curcurmin is studied and the results are presumed to be applicable to the natural ingredient well accepted and known to be widely beneficial in Ayurveda in the first place. It is likely the reason curcumin was studied was that it has an enormous cost premium as compared to the natural turmeric powder widely available. Two prior similar mistakes come to mind - walnuts and carrots Walnuts consumption had been found to be helpful in some way for vascular di

In August 2005 in a letter to the editor of the Washington Post I had brought up that life expectancy in America would be expected to drop. I was concerned about heavy consumption of trans fats in fast foods as well as most baked goods. To add to the toxic mix of transfat laden foods was consumption of liquid sugars in high calorie soda pop, energy drinks and juices. In my medical practice I had noticed more younger patients were being admitted to the hospital with serious infections then in prior years. Increasing data over the last few years has corroborated my concern from 2005. A recent study of 50 years of mortality data confirms that US life expectancy has not kept pace with other wealthy countries and is now decreasing. A significant increase in death rates in the prime years of life ages 25 and 44 is noted in ALL races. This study is by Stephen Woolf MD MPH and Heidi Schoomaker MAEd. JAMA2019(20):1996-2016. Eli:10.1001/jama.2019.16932

Dollars for Docs How Industry Dollars Reach Your Doctors This is Pro Publica's search engine with data from over 2 million transactions in the public domain of $$ paid to your health care provider/ institution. Use it to understand the consulting fees, meals, travel paid out. The data is part of the settlement from years ago that the drug companies agreed to furnish this data. Pro Publica has put it in a much better searchable format.

Ask Doctor Vinod: McDonald’s Transfat Settlement Aug 24 2005----  SUCCESS IN USA  -- FINALLY 2013 FDA MOVES FOR TOTAL BAN http://askdoctorvinod.blogspot.com/2006/07/mcdonalds-transfat-settlement-aug-24.html

All Asians want to be gora. White skin! Indians I knew about, but Chinese cherish white skin too.  Since forever. So sun is shunned.  From childhood. Krishna, Shiva and Kali of dark skin have been forgotten. All want to be Sita and Ram. And Asians, newly wealthy are the target for corporates. Money is to be made. Print, Radio and TV media tout western lightening creams and sun block creams. Articles expounding skin modern doctors, sun hating convictions, fill magazines and Cricket TV broadcasts. I ran across one just yesterday on my flight from Goa to Mumbai. "Just take Vit D supplements" it said and "cover yourself with sun screen". SPF - sun protection factors, of - different branded creams was conveniently listed. Just such nonsense is likely what brought a young man to see me the other day. I was surprised he had severe Vit D deficiency despite hours in the sun, golfing. He diligently applied expensive sun block cream every time he golfed. Lately he had b

Rare diseases are often given importance at Grand Rounds everywhere. Dartmouth is no exception. Esoteric is exciting, in medicine too! Today's topic Hepato-Renal Syndrome by Dr Block, is remarkably rare. It is a manifestation of end stage liver disease. We hear about MELD scores and renal/ kidney cortical venoconstriction. International Ascites Club... gets a good laugh. They have criteria to diagnose it. Type 1 die quickly without liver transplantation. Other types..2,3,4 live somewhat longer. New to me, fancy markers of Acute Kidney injury, Cystatin C and NGAL are talked about. More esoterica. Mayo does these tests. Apparently the results of these do not help patients. But keep your eyes out for these anyway. Great on rounds to impress your colleagues! And for high scores on tests! At DHMC they have not done too many trans venous kidney biopsies, Dr Block says. Can help clarify the causes of the kidney problems. In expert hands it is listed as safe. Sympathetic nervous s

Doctor Vinod's Wellness Blog: TURMERIC - A spoonful a day keeps the doctor away.