Tue, 18 Jul 2023 01:51:01 -0700WeeblyThu, 29 Oct 2015 05:30:43 GMThttp://www.drdwyer.co.za/news/the-meat-scareMany people are concerned about the latest health scare from The World Health Organisation (WHO, yes, you may well be wondering).  WHO recently released their 'finding' that red meat and processed meats 'cause cancer'.  This is not 'new' news - it has in fact been widely publicised for many years now. The WHO stats show that red meat and processed meats increase the relative risk of cancer by 18%.  To put this in perspective we need to know what the rate of occurrence of cancer is in the average population - the incidence.  The incidence of bowel cancer (the type that WHO is referring to) is approximately 6 cases per 100 000 people per year, i.e. every year, in each group of 100 000 people, there will be six new cases of bowel cancer.  The 'increased risk' for consumers of meat, 18% (which sounds scary),  means that every year in each group of 100 000 meat eaters, there will be 7 new cases of bowel cancer.  The chances of getting bowel cancer will therefore rise from 0.006% to 0.007%  i.e. an increase of 0.001%.  Stated like this, as a change in absolute risk, rather than as a change in 'relative risk', the numbers are substantially less scary.  Remember also, that the numbers released by the WHO do not take into account various dietary co-factors, such as the levels of vitamins and trace elements in the other foods eaten by the people studied.]]>Fri, 01 Nov 2013 05:39:46 GMThttp://www.drdwyer.co.za/news/ivfThere are a great number of woman desperately trying to conceive.  As they age, the desperate need for baby  seems to become overwhelming for many and they will try almost anything to conceive. Enter the infertility specialist and welcome to the strange new world of GlFT,  lUl,  lCSl, AlDS [Artificial lnjection of Donor Sperm - is that irony or not?] etc etc   Such stalwarts go through trying times, suffering a panoply of procedures and experiencing extreme emotions and expenses as well as the side effects of surgical procedures and medications.   The consequences, while blazing with brilliance when the outcome is successful, are damaging, distressing disasters when failure occurs.  Frequent failure seems to be the norm, as shown by research results  supplied by the United Kingdom's HFEA -  the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority  [a title, the majority of which would possibly have been better reserved for a veterinary authority tasked with the supervision reproductive efforts in cattle].  

Results : 

Success rate- SOURCE: HFEA

Under 35  - 32.2%
35-37  -  27.7%
38-39  -  20.8%
40-42  -  13.6%
43-44  -  5.0%
45 and over  -  1.9%


  Suggestion: before embarking on this process, consider your age and perhaps say to yourself:  'Do I really want to be doing this?'

]]>Thu, 03 Oct 2013 11:59:39 GMThttp://www.drdwyer.co.za/news/this-is-a-true-stroyAn elderly patient consulted with her general practitioner regarding a temporary flu-like ailment.  He noted that her blood pressure was 135/85.  She received a prescription from him which she handed to her pharmacist. "What are these pills for?" she enquired of the pharmacist.  
"These are pills for high blood pressure," the pharmacist informed her.  
"Oh," responded the patient, "and what height should my blood pressure be?"
 "Best to keep it under 145/90," the pharmacist advised her earnestly.  
"But my blood pressure is 135/85," she replied, feeling a little confused.
"Well," said the pharmacist in a scholarly fashion, "then your doctor has prescribed these pill to keep your blood pressure at that level.  Very important, you know, not to have high blood pressure."  
"And for how long must I take these pills?" asked the ever more bemused patient.  
"Oh, these," said the pharmacist, "you must take these pills for the rest of your life..." ]]>Fri, 09 Aug 2013 06:01:44 GMThttp://www.drdwyer.co.za/news/a-new-animal-takes-a-bowThe Mers-Cov syndrome mentioned previously has been allocated to an animal, possibly.  We've had Bird Flu, Swine Flu, Badger TB, Mad Cow Disease, Tax Flu (SARS), and now, camels, after being left out in the desert for so long,  have been invited to join the animal party.  Researchers have tested camels, goats, cows, and sheep.  They have found evidence that all Omani Camels tested had antibodies to the Mers-Cov, although only 14% of Spanish Camels tested positive.  European sheep, goats and cattle, and other camelids tested negative.  Despite their camels testing 100% positive, the people of Oman have not yet had the decency to produce even one human victim - no Mers-Cov cases have occurred in Oman.  The researchers said:  "We did find antibodies that we think are specific for the Mers coronavirus or a virus that looks very similar to the Mers coronavirus in dromedary camels (Professor Marion Koopmans, from the National Institute of Public Health and the Environment and Erasmus University in The Netherlands). With this degree of certainty, Camel Flu is set to become popular for a while, especially among vaccine manufacturers, who have, until recently, been spending their time disposing of large stocks of vaccines unused during the previous animal flu non-epidemics. 
Read more: http://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(13)70164-6/abstract]]>Fri, 05 Jul 2013 03:16:28 GMThttp://www.drdwyer.co.za/news/animals-lose-out-to-crownsThe swine, pig, and bird flu viruses proved inept at world domination, despite much assistance and coercion from supporting role players.  A new family of viruses has been taken under the wing of the publicists - the coronaviruses.  As usual they originate 'somewhere else', in this case, the 'Middle East'; the lastest version has been named MERS or  Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV).  There are sixty-four confirmed cases of MERS. It has been deemed not transmissible (non-infectious) by the researches.  However, as the Professor in charge of the research so accurately  stated:  "The virus as it currently stands is not able to start an epidemic. My concern is that people read this and not worry about it..."  That would be awful, imagine if everybody stopped worrying...
]]>Tue, 19 Mar 2013 05:52:58 GMThttp://www.drdwyer.co.za/news/swine-flu-againSome Australians, perhaps trying to hog the limelight, are panicking about Tamiflu resistance among Swine Flu viruses.  They must be very young researchers not to have been around during the non event 'pandemic' the last time Swine Flu was big news when drug resistance was already prevalent.http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-21828245
]]>Tue, 19 Feb 2013 16:19:02 GMThttp://www.drdwyer.co.za/news/sitting-is-not-coolSeems that the longer we sit, the greater chance of becoming ill.  More than four hours of sitting each day is not so clever.  When you consider how much time we spend on our behinds [meals, travelling, school,work, tv, reading, shows etc] it's no wonder there's so much chronic illness about. http://www.ijbnpa.org/content/10/1/20
http://www.k-state.edu/media/newsreleases/feb13/sitting21813.html



]]>Fri, 15 Feb 2013 10:17:40 GMThttp://www.drdwyer.co.za/news/tb-vaccineThe powers that be are still desperate to develop a TB vaccine.  
(http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(13)60177-4/abstract). 
This relies on the presumption that TB is an infectious disease, caused by a 'germ' (in this case Mycobacterium tuberculosis).  The fact that TB occurs almost exclusively in deprived socio-economic conditions, or circumstances of poor nutrition,  is once again being ignored.  That we cannot medicate or vaccinate against poor housing, unsanitary sanitation, over-crowding, poor nutrition, alcoholism, smoking etc, seems to merrily bypass the imagination of those in charge of public health.  As a result we have bombarded, continuously, the victims of this disease, with a range of powerful, long term antibiotics, with the result that the TB epidemic now flares unchecked, and is marked by the increasingly frequent occurrence of, first, drug resistant TB, then Multi-drug resistant (MDR)TB, then Extreme drug resistant TB (XDR), and finally, Complete drug resistant TB (CDR), a disease for which we have no chemical answer...  
A decent house and a decent diet for each TB sufferer, or potential sufferer, would go a long way to reducing the expanding epidemic, as was well described by the Valley Trust food garden programme in Kwazulu-Natal.  The use of drugs and vaccines for a socio-economic disease is not proving to be effective. ]]>Thu, 14 Feb 2013 10:03:02 GMThttp://www.drdwyer.co.za/news/sars-againIt's that time of the year again, and many are gearing up to face SARS requirements as the financial year end approaches.

A different sort of SARS is being beaten into life, again,  with the kind of scaremongering journalism, favoured by and courtesy of BBC news [emphasis in bold by me]:

"Health officials in the UK believe they have the strongest evidence yet that a new respiratory illness similar to the deadly Sars virus can spread from person to person.

Cases of the infection may come from contact with animals. However, if the virus can spread between people it poses a much more serious threat.

One man in the UK is thought to have caught the infection from his father.

However, officials say the threat to the whole population remains very low.

There have been 11 confirmed cases of the infection around the world [wow!}. It causes pneumonia and sometimes kidney failure - five patients have died [a real decimation, like last time].

This is the third case identified in the UK. The first was a patient flown in from Qatar for treatment. The second was linked to travel to the Middle East and Pakistan.

The virus is then thought to have spread from the second patient to his son. There have been suggestions of person to person transmission in earlier cases in the Middle East, but this was not confirmed.

The third UK case is being treated in intensive care at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham.

The patient is known to have an underlying health condition which left them with a weakened immune system [wonder what that was?]. This may have made them susceptible to the infection.

There have been no signs of the virus spreading to staff at the hospital.

Boring, boring, boring, but, they keep trying to breath life into a dead horse [the ones from the meat pies maybe].]]>Tue, 12 Feb 2013 09:12:56 GMThttp://www.drdwyer.co.za/news/horse-meatWe've been through mad cow disease, swine flu, bird flu, etc, and now we have horse meat pie syndrome.  Unlike the others though, this one seems to have less health risks.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21406653
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