Aids Death Statistics
Aids Death Statistics
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Are African Americans more vulnerable to AIDS?
Statistics indicate it is one of the leading causes for the death of African women in America. Is the reason for this physiological? Are sure races more vulnerable to HIV transmission than others?
Not really. It's just a population that HIV got established in, like the gay community, or subsaharan Africa, or elements of Asia. HIV has never been well traditionalisti in the heterosexual white, asian or latino populations in America. There's no real biological reason it can't get traditionalisti though.
Well. That's technically not true. There's a rarish gene called CCR5-D32 that makes it exceedingly difficult to contract HIV through mucosal contact- it basically means you have to have an HIV contaminated liquid in contact with your blood. People who have CCR5-D32 copies from both parents have the above resistance. People who have only one get not one thing special. People who trace their ancestry back to Europe seem to have this gene more oftentimes than people of African descent, but this is more of a 'novelty' in HIV epidemiology. It doesn't bestow much.
Broken People
Heart attacks are a mutual form of ischemic heart disease. The World health Organization approximated in the year 2002 that over twelve percent of all global deaths arose as a result of ischemic heart disease. In invented countries, it is the leading cause of death. In constructing countries, notwithstanding it comes third behind AIDS and lower respiratory infections.
Heart attacks, known by their medical name of acute myocardial infarction, is a state of sickness that involves the disruption of the bloody supply to part of the heart. The result is a shortage of oxygen that may harm the heart tissue and potentially kill. Heart attacks are the leading cause of death all over the world. Major heart attack peril constituents include a history of angina or vascular disease, a former stroke or heart attack, old age, exuberant alcohol, the abuse of illegal drugs, smoking, sequences of unnatural heart beat, obesity, high levels of stress, high or low cholesterol, high triglyceride levels, high blood pressure, and diabetes.
Heart disease forms the leading cause of death in the United States - it is even more mutual than cancer. An approximated one fifth of all deaths in America come as a result of coronary heart disease. Over thirteen million people throughout the nation suffer from coronary heart disease. Every year, over a million persons suffer from coronary heart attacks; four out of each ten persons die from their attacks.
Symptoms of heart attacks include anxiety, a sentiment of approaching doom, chest pain, sweating, shortness of breath, palpitations, nausea, and vomiting. Oftentimes, heart attack persons who requires medical care will feel sick very suddenly. The sensations or changes for heart attacks in men are ofttimes dissimilar from the sensations or changes in women. Women most many times experience fatigue, shortness of breath, and a sentiment of weakness. About one third of all heart attacks are silent and do not consist of any chest pain or related symptoms.
Below, you will find galore recent stats for heart attacks in the United States.
452,327: the number of deaths due to heart attacks in the United States in the year 2004.
20: the percentage of all deaths due to heart attacks in the United States in the year 2004.
1.2 million: the intermediate number of heart attacks that take place each year.
38: the share of all those who die from a coronary heart attack.
15.8 million: the number of heart attack persons who requires medical care who survive.
8.9 million: the approximated amount of angina persons who requires medical care in the United States.
400,000: the number of new angina cases each year in the United States.
233,000: the number of women who passed from physical life from cardiovascular impairment of normal physiological function each year.
14 million: the number of Americans afflicted with a heap of form of heart impairment of normal physiological function or angina.
50: the share of deaths that take place one hour after a heart attack when not treated.
60 billion: the amount of dollars expended on heart attack treatment and preventative action each year.
20: each 20 seconds, a new heart attack occurs someplace in America.
60: each minute, another heart attack death occurs.
Review
“In this brilliant book, David Agus introduces a whole new way of looking at sickness and health. Taking a cue from physics, he views the body as a complex scheme and helps us see how everything from cancer to nutrition fits into one whole picture. The result is both a utile guide on how to stay healthful and a arousing and attention holding analysis of the latest in medical science.”
--Walter Isaacson, author of Steve Jobs
“Dr. David Agus has given us a noteworthy peek into our health--and the affect will be profound. I’ve made it my mission in life to live strong and aid others do the same. The End of Illness is one more endowing piece to the puzzle of knowing how to do just that. This book will prevent illness, revolutionize treatments, and lengthen people's lives. A tour de strength in it is deliverance and message.”
-- Lance Armstrong, 7-time Tour de France winner and Founder and Chairman, LIVESTRONG
“David Agus is one of America’s great doctors and medical researchers, a man consecrated to bettering the health of as a lot of persons as he can. Written in a style and format that will genuinely engage readers, The End of Illness presents a dramatic, new way of thinking with regards to our own health—a way that could lead to principally bettering the quality of life for millions, starting right now.”
-- Al Gore, 45th Vice President of the United States, Nobel Laureate in Peace, 2007
“As physician, exploration scientist, and friendly guide, Dr. Agus takes his readers on a arousing and attention holding tour of ideas and facts in regards to health and illness. They will find a good deal of of those ideas to be unconventional and thought-provoking and a great deal of of the facts to be both striking and surprising. Read this book and you will very likely change at least a good deal of of your views on health and illness.”
-- Murray Gell-Mann, PhD, Nobel Laureate in Physics, 1969, and Distinguished Fellow and Cofounder of The Santa Fe Institute
“David Agus's The End of Illness is a brilliant blend of enlightening manifesto and practical how-to in the realm of our most primary ingredient to a long and happy life: health. Filled with unorthodox ideas backed with hard science, it simplifies for the reader the complexity of critical developments happening in medicine today and teaches us how to make the most of what's available, as well as what's soon to come.”
– Michael Dell, Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer of Dell, Inc.
“Dr. David Agus is surfing the crest of two great waves of innovation -- in selective information engineering science and the life sciences. His End of Illness uses Big Data to decode the personal and molecular basis of disease. And, more important, advance a new model for health where preventative action is key.
-- John Doerr, collaborator Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers
"David Agus, one of the nation's most modern cancer doctors, shatters the myths with regards to health and wellness and provides us with a handbook for living a long, healthful life."
-- Steve Case, Chairman of Revolution and The Case Foundation, co-founder America Online
“In this seminal book, Dr. David Agus presents a brilliant new model of health based on the body as a complex system with an special importance and significance on prevention. The End of Illness may reframe everything you thought you knew regarding health. It is both provocative and inspiring. Highly recommended.”
-- Dean Ornish, MD founder and president of the Preventive medicine Research Institute, Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco
“Dr. David Agus has been disrupting medicine as we recognise it for his entire career. Now, he brings his ideas out of the lab and exam room and into the lives of everyone—showing us how to live long, healthy, disease-free lives. Reading this book is the best thing you may do for yourself and your loved ones. A monumental work that will modify your life.”
-- Marc Benioff, Chairman and CEO, salesforce.com
David Agus is one of the outstanding medical thinkers of our age. "The End of Illness" reframes the entire discussion of sickness and health. Instead of thinking with regards to disease Agus thinks regarding the system that is the humane body, and what we need to do to guide it toward health. Before you take your next vitamin, read this book.
— Danny Hillis, PhD, Co-founder, Applied Minds and Thinking Machines
About the Author
David B. Agus, MD, is a professor of medicine and engineering at the University of Southern California and heads U.S.C.’s Westside Cancer Center and the Center for Applied Molecular Medicine. He is one of the world’s leading cancer doctors, and the co-founder of two pioneering individualized medicine companies, Navigenics and Applied Proteomics. In addition to his commitment to caring for persons who requires medical care while constructing new approaches for individualized healthcare, Dr. Agus likewise chairs the Global Agenda Council on Genetics for the World Economic Forum and speaks regularly at TEDMED, the Aspen Ideas Festival, and the World Economic Forum.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
1
What Is Health?
A New Definition That Changes Everything
Everyone has a vague idea of what it means to live a healthful life. Eating a balanced diet: good. Smoking: bad. Breaking a sweat regularly: good. Binge drinking: bad. Getting a restful night’s sleep: bonus. Being happy: double bonus. Some of us may choose to disregard these basic tenets on occasion, but for the most part, we recognise the divergence amongst the habits that aid us stay youthful and strong, and those that may detract from our well-being.
We undertake our best to stay out of harm’s way, but what happens when we get sick or develop a chronic medical condition or, heaven forbid, are diagnosed with a severe illness? After experiencing the feeling of annoyance at being hindered or criticized of Why me? galore of us commence to ask ourselves other, more probing inquiries with regards to where we might have gone wrong. Was it something in the water? A lifelong love of hamburgers and fries? An overdemanding boss and, as a result, an overpowering stress level? Too much alcohol? Too little exercise? Secondhand smoke? Exposure to industrial chemicals? A habit of living dangerously, whatsoever that might mean? Bad luck?
Or perhaps, some of us think, this outcome was fated because it was just in my DNA all along.
If I could gather a nickel for each time somebody in the world thought that genetics was completely to blame for this disease or that defect, I’d be the wealthiest man on earth. It’s humane nature to point fingers at somebody or something else for our flaws and shortcomings, and to refrain from any personal culpability. Because DNA have a tendancy to be a comparatively abstract construct, much like black holes or quarks, which we cannot touch, see, or feel, it might as well be a “something else” to which we may assign guilt. After all, DNA is “given” to us by our parents and we have no choice. In this regard, DNA is practically accidental; just as accidents happen, so does DNA, without our having much say in the matter.
What most persons don’t think about, though, is that DNA says more when it comes to our danger than our fate. It governs probabilities, not inevitably destinies. As my friend and colleague Danny Hillis (whom we’ll meet later when I cover emergent technologies) likes to describe it, DNA is plainly a list of constituents or ingredients rather than a finish manual that explains how those parts work together to generate results. To hold your DNA responsible for your health is missing the forest for the trees. It’s not the piÈce de rÉsistance. I say this knowing full well that DNA does hold sure keys to your health; if it didn’t, then I wouldn’t have cofounded a company that performs genetic testing so you may take preventive measures based on your genomic peril profile. But right from the get-go I want to entice you to start out thinking from a broader perspective that goes far beyond your genes. I want you to view your body—from the outer stretchings of your skin to the inner sanctum of your cellular makeup—as a whole system. It’s a in an unambiguous manner coordinated and highly functioning system that leaves so much to the imagination because we’re only just beginning to solve it is riddles.
So therefore, as we probe the mystery of the humane body more deeply, we discover that this system, and it is complex riddles, don’t inevitably hinge on DNA alone.
The Inescapable Statistics
To grasp how we’ve arrived at a place where we focus so much on DNA, and why it’s critical to respect the body as an elaborated scheme beyond genetics, it helps to explore the evolution of our thinking processes versus the backdrop of the challenges we’ve faced—and carry on to face—in our quest for health and longevity.
Most of our transformative breakthroughs in medicine have occurred only recently, in the last sixty or so years. Following the invention of penicillin in 1928, which changed the whole landscape of fighting contagions based on the psychological result of perception learning and reasoning that they were caused by bacteria, we got good at extending our lives by various years and, in a great deal of cases, decades. This was made possible through a constellation of contributing circumstances, including a decline in cigarette smoking, changes in our diets for the better, improvements in diagnostics and medical care, and of course advancements in aimed therapies and drugs such as cholesterol-lowering statins.
Heart disease has been the leading cause of death in the United States since 1921, and stroke has been the third-leading cause since 1938; together, these vascular impairment of normal physiological functions account for approximately 40 percent of all deaths. Since 1950, however, age-adjusted death rates from cardiovascular disease have declined 60 to 70 percent, representing one of the most important public health achievements of the twentieth century.
The Science and Art of Defining Your Health
Death Rates for Leading Causes of Death: All Ages
Put another way:
But here’s the sobering truth sitting on the sidelines of these triumphs like a lumbering white elephant: the death rate from cancer from 1950 to 2007 (the most current selective information available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) didn’t change much. We are making enormous progress versus other chronic diseases, but little versus cancer. Indeed, there are little wins here and there with distinguishable types of cancer. Take, for instance, chronic myelogenous leukemia, a rare type of leukemia that had antecedently been a death sentence except for a little number of persons who requires medical care who benefited from bone-marrow transplantation. With the FDA approval of Gleevec (brand name for imatinib mesylate) in May 2001—the same month it made the cover of Time magazine as the “magic bullet” to heal cancer—we now have a way to with great success treat most people who are in need of medical care and achieve remarkable recovery rates. The drug targets the peculiar chromosomal rearrangement that is present in this sickness (part of chromosome 9 is fused to percentage of chromosome 22). In clinical trials, the response rate to Gleevec was over 90 percent. People went from their deathbeds to functional life after taking this little molecule with few side effects. But with the more mutual deadly cancers, including those that ravage the lung, colon, breast, prostate, brain, and so on, we’ve had an embarrassingly little affect on death rates.
Whenever I throw the chart on the former page, “Change in the US Death Rates by Cause,” on a slide up in front of an audience, I listen a few gasps of disbelief. How may this be? What did we do defective in our research? Is there is mistake, or perhaps a typo, in this data? I showed this graphic for the duration of my 2009 TEDMED talk as share of a more spectacular discussion that included thirty-seven other slides and have received hundreds of e-mails since referring to just this one slide. Many of the inquiries are aggressive in tone—accusing me of being a pessimist and in some way controlling the data. I wish I could present better news from my camp.
This graph demonstrates the unfathomed effect that therapeutics such as statins have had in heart disease and stroke. Antibiotics and antivirals, including vaccines, have put a major dent in cases of pneumonia and infections. Even when we consider cancer rates all over the globe, we may find a heap of stats that defy all the stereotypes. In galore of the sub-Saharan countries, where we tend to think in regards to diseases such as AIDS and other contagions mutual in underdeveloped nations, more humans die of cancer than of HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria combined. In 2010, chronic disease overtook infectious disease as the leading killer worldwide. So this problem isn’t just a major cause of concern in America. It affects the global community at large.
The lack of change in the death rate from cancer is veritably alarming. The more astonishing observation that I want you to note here, though, is that antibiotics and antivirals do not target the humane being—they target the external, invading organism. Statins, on the other hand, target the humane scheme in ways that we are starting to learn more about. Contrary to ordinary belief, the statins work not just by letting down cholesterol through a single pathway or point of fundamental interaction in the body; they have a unfathomed effect on the entire system, letting down inflammation, thereby altering the body’s entire environment. Vaccines likewise target the system, but do so in a clever way—activating the immune scheme artificially by making it seem as even though a alien organism has invaded the body.
I stated plainly in the introduction that this isn’t a cancer book, but I need to draw from my experience as an oncologist to get you to perceive a few core concepts. We may actually trace our kinship to health to the study of cancer. When we consider the bequest of sickness in our history and how we’ve come to perceive today a mysterious malady such as cancer, we may begin to see how and why we may have veered off track. We may distinguish the thinking processes and incorrect conceptions that we’ve blindly embraced and that have thwarted our attempts to advance medicine and, in turn, our person goals of optimal health. On a positive note, we may get started to see how we may shift direction and hug a new frontier in the pursuit of health customized to each person, you and me. We may ultimately reach a point where we may make significant advances in the “war” versus all illnesses.
A Cancerous Perspective
Cancer, as I explained earlier, is a great metaphor for anything affiliated to sickness. It’s each person’s archenemy, the bearer of all things “bad” when it comes to health, happiness, and of course longevity. All of us fear learning that our body has turned versus us—that cancer has struck and the future is uncertain. This uncertainty may be most unpleasant. Suddenly we can not answer questions such as where, how, why, and when—as in when will I be ca...
Can we live robustly until our last breath? Do we have to suffer from debilitating conditions and sickness? Is it possible to add more vibrant years to our lives? In The End of Illness, David B. Agus, MD, one of the world’s leading cancer doctors, researchers, and engineering science innovators, tackles these rudimentary questions, challenging long-held wisdoms and dismantling misperceptions when it comes to what “health” means. With a blend of storytelling, landmark research, and provocative ideas on health, Dr. Agus presents an eye-opening picture of the humane body and all of the ways it works—and fails—showing us how a new perspective on our person health will concede each of us to achieve that often times elusive but now reachable goal of a long, vigorous life.
When Dr. Agus decisive to pursue a career in oncology, galore of his advisors questioned his choice. Why, they asked, would a promising young doctor want to enter a field known for it is inescapably grim outcomes? But it was incisively the lack of progress that inspired Dr. Agus to join the war on cancer. He moved away from the progressed methods of the medical establishment, which intent to reduce our afflictions to a single point. Instead, as he does in this book, Dr. Agus argues for the adoption of a systemic view—a way of honoring our bodies as complex, whole systems. This outlook informs how we may refrain from all illnesses—not just cancer. Dr. Agus empowers us to take charge of our person health in personal, customized ways we could not have imagined before.
This crucial book is not only a manifesto—a call for reorganizing the way we think in regards to health—it’s likewise filled with practical but impossible-to-ignore suggestions, including:
• How taking multivitamins and supplements could significantly increase our danger for cancer over time.
• Why sitting down most of the day, in spite of a strenuous morning workout, may be as bad as or worse than smoking.
• How sneaky roots of each day inflammation—from high heels to the mutual cold—can lead to a fatal heart attack, and even rob us of our sanity.
• How three inexpensive medications—aspirin, statins, and an annual flu vaccine—can substantially alter the course of our health for the better.
• How taking shortcuts to health by way of blending fruits and vegetables, and now and again even by purchasing what we think is “fresh,” could be shortchanging our health.
• The single most important thing we may do today to preserve our health and pleasure that costs utterly nothing.
Dr. Agus also offers perceptivenesses and access to breathtaking and powerful new technologies that promise to transform medicine in our generation. In the course of providing recommendations, he emphasizes his faith that there is no “right” answer, no master guide that is “one size fits all.” Each one of us will have to get to recognise our bodies in in a unique manner personal ways, and he shows us precisely how to do that so that we may on an individual basis construct a plan for wellness.
The End of Illness is a bold call for all of us to become our own personal health advocates, and a dramatic departure from orthodox thinking. This is a seminal work that promises to revolutionize how we live.
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #834 in Books
- Published on: 2012-01-17
- Released on: 2012-01-17
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Binding: Hardcover
- 352 pages
Reviews
414 of 425 people found the following review helpful.
Decent Book, Brilliant Marketing!
By AppleTexts
I got this book after seeing some of the five-star reviews, and watching the author's January 9 pre-publication interview with Connie Chung. I've now read it, and I found it provocative and engaging. The author describes the relevant studies in an easy, conversational manner, and he presents convincing cases for several different life-style changes:
(1) Taking a baby aspirin a day might well save your life.
(2) If you spend a lot of time sitting down on the job, get up every once in a while and walk around. Take the stairs when possible. That could add years to your life.
(3) Frozen fruit is probably better for you than "fresh" fruit. As a result, making smoothies is probably better than juicing.
(4) As the costs of whole genome sequencing come down (and patent issues are resolved), people would be well advised to get their genome read and diagnosed - whether by this author's company or another's. While genes don't tell the whole story, they can be very indicative of preventable problems. And prevention is far preferable to treatment.
(5) Do whatever you can to avoid the release of stress hormones - those can cut your life short too. Obviously stay clear of stressful situations (or develop coping mechanisms); less obviously, try to eat your meals on a regular schedule, and keep a regular sleep schedule.
(6) Do what you can to avoid inflammation generally - inflammation can have long-term effects. Taking a daily aspirin is a good start; getting a regular flu shot might be another.
A bit more controversial are his recommendations regarding statins and nutritional supplements. He says that taking statins when you turn forty will reduce your chances of inflammation and cancer, and he points to studies that suggest that in some cases, taking nutritional supplements can do more harm than good - specifically that taking large amounts of vitamin D or vitamin E has been linked to prostate cancer, and that tumors tend to feed on vitamin C. I see that other reviewers consider these studies biased (apparently they were paid for by pharmaceutical companies), or simply wrong (was the study vitamin D, or its metabolite calcitriol?), but I think the author makes a valuable contribution by bringing them to our attention. If in fact the studies he relies on are flawed, people will come forward with the studies and books that refute them.
I'm giving the book four stars because it taught me some things I didn't know and because I think it makes a real contribution. I'm not giving it the fifth star, because I don't think it's that much better, or that much more of an eye-opener, than any number of health and fitness books I have read. All of them have the same basic message about taking care of the entire organism, yet the author here acts like he's the first one who thought of that. And didn't Aristotle recommend moderation in all things?
On top of that, I'm disturbed by the way this book was marketed, and the route it took to the top of all the best-seller lists. I see from Beowulf's review that all of the big-name reviewers (Al Gore ["dramatic, new way of thinking about our own health"], Lance Armstrong ["tour de force"], Dean Ornish ["brilliant new model of health"], Steve Case ["shatters the myths"], etc.) turn out to be friends or investors of the author's, and that most of the five-star reviews are probably fake. I also recently learned that Connie Chung - whose interview with the author convinced me to buy the book in the first place - is actually the author's mother-in-law (or step-mother-in-law, to be more accurate - he's married to Maury Povich's daughter). I don't think it's fair to customers not to disclose all of these connections, and I'm concerned that all of these undisclosed connections have contributed disproportionately to the popularity of this book.
1170 of 1236 people found the following review helpful.
Save Your Money - Get this at your local library
By LuvUrPets
For once, I fell for the hype surrounding a book but after reading "The End of Illness" I realized I should have stuck with my original plan to check it out from my library. There is absolutely nothing groundbreaking or particularly significant about anything contained in this book. So why give it three stars? It does contain basic, medically supported info that some older person who has had no tv, no internet, no newspaper, and no radio access for the last 30 years and refuses to go to the doctor or listen to his doctor would need to know. As for the rest of us, all this book does is confirm what you already knew or suspected.
I am assuming though that you're interested in this book because you want to: (a) avoid an illness, particularly a life threatening illness or (b) you already have an illness and think this book will give suggestions on how to improve your life and get control of your illness. Learning about new advances in medicine which may or may not lead to anything that will help you during your lifetime is just a bonus but not high on your list of priorities. To be truthful, even if you read the book for that last purpose, you'd still be disappointed. I'm one of those unlucky people who was diagnosed with a chronic illness at the tender age of 13. Before then, nothing major happened in my life to kick start the illness - no drug use, no past illnesses/accidents, no lack of exercise, no atrocious diet, no lack of sleep habits, not a genetic disease. Sometimes $%&@ happens. As a mid 30s person, I'm pretty well versed in health matters but not an expert by far. I suspect many people my age and slightly older already know about the "tools" Dr. Agus "details" in this book and probably have been using them for years. It's the same "tools" you can learn about in any of the pithy little "Live to be 100" yahoo health articles the site spouts off every few weeks - and today.
Since the table of contents is available, I don't think I'd be breaking any rules or providing any spoilers by mentioning these tools:
(1) Don't believe every health study that comes out (duh)
(2) Taking vitamins is not as good as eating healthy food (duh)
(3) Try to avoid or lessen inflammation in the body (big Duh) - doesn't really tell you how except to get flu shots and wear comfortable clothes. Basically anytime you injure yourself or get sick there is inflammation. Not really a way to avoid all that esp. if you were a rambunctious kid since apparently things that happened to you as a kid can have a long lasting effect on your health today. From the anecdotes he tells in this section, I think Monk would be the only person capable of pulling this suggestion off successfully from birth to death. Even so, he could still get an illness because $%#@ Happens!
(4) Exercise (really?!)
(5) Keep a regular schedule for eating, sleeping, exercising (you don't say)
(6) Overall theme, keep track of how you are health-wise. Find out what's normal for you (done and done)
Rest of the book is filler on historical discoveries you learned in high school and hopes for the future, particularly with proteomics. He does seem to have a love affair with statins. Not being in the age range or having the type of illness to require these meds, I have absolutely no opinion on that.
There were only two things I took away from this book - that it's better to exercise in spurts than all at once (read about that earlier somewhere but it doesn't hurt to reinforce it) and you may want to get a DNA test to show your susceptibility to certain illnesses .... tests which coincidentally are offered by a company co-founded by Dr. Agus. Imagine that. Regardless, it does sound helpful esp. the ability to tell which drugs will work best for you. My doctor would probably say it's a waste of time and money but I'll make that decision after further research.
That's the book in a nutshell. He could have just written that in a two page internet article but I guess it wouldn't get much attention or money. Oh, and although the book is called "The End of Illness," it of course does not say a thing about "ending" illness now or in the future. A more truthful title would be "The Possible Downgrading of Terminal Diseases and Chronic Diseases that Substantially Lower Your Quality of Life into Easily Manageable Minor Diseases that You'll Still Suffer From But Will Have Better Control Over than Previous Generations." Reminds me of the Chris Rock joke where he says doctors will never cure AIDS but they'll make it manageable so all you have to do is take a pill everyday. The money's in the medicine. Not the cure. Prevention is the biggest weapon we have but you don't need this book to tell you that.
178 of 193 people found the following review helpful.
Trashes vitamin D, promotes aspirin, statins, flu vaccinations
By William B. Grant
This book may have some good points regarding lifestyle choices, but in my field of expertise, vitamin D, misses the mark by a wide margin. Vitamin D is a natural compound that humans have required forever. Thus, much of what we know about the roles of vitamin D come from ecological (geographical or seasonal) and observational studies. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) have provided very good evidence that vitamin D reduces the risk of cancer, hip fractures, type A influenza, pneumonia, increase survival after diagnosis of cardiovascular disease, and reduce all-cause mortality rate. A recent RCT found that pregnant and nursing women need at least 4000 IU/d and that there are no adverse effects. The reasons why there are not more successful randomized controlled trials with vitamin D reported are several: most studies used only 400 IU/d vitamin D, the benefical effects of vitamin D for many types of disease have been identified in the past few years, there are many sources of vitamin D such as food, supplements and solar UVB, and there is considerable person-to-person variability in serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D with respect to oral vitamin D intake. The author dismisses the benefit of vitamin D for reducing the risk of cancer based in part on a 2008 International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) report. The authors of that report were primarily dermatologists who consider their mission in life to keep people out of the sun in order to prevent melanoma and skin cancer. This report has been shown to be highly biased. The author also suggests that cancer rates are higher at high latitudes due perhaps to genomic effects. This idea is incorrect based on a comparison of cancer rates in Nordic countries based on occupation: those with outdoor occupations have reduced risk of 17 types of cancer compared to those with indoor occupations. The measure of UV exposure was lip cancer for males, so the finding is not related to exercise, obesity, or smoking.
As for the basic recommendations listed on the dust jacket, aspirin, statins, and annual flu shot, they have serious problems. About 5% of those taking aspirin suffer GI tract bleeding, leading to many unnecessary deaths. One of the important effects of statins is to enhance the effects of vitamin D, so why not just take vitamin D. As for flu shots, the evidence that they are effective is limited (see who sponsored the study and ask why influenza mortality rates fail to show much effect of vaccine use), and there are two RCTs showing that vitamin D greatly reduces the risk of type A influenza.
The reason Big Pharma does not like vitamin D is that it is very inexpensive and very effective at reducing risk of many types of disease. The tradeoff between protection against UV damage and vitamin D production is the reason why skin pigmentation varies from very dark in the tropical plains and very pale in northern Europe.
For more information on vitamin D, go to [...], [...]t, [...]and do your own search at [...]
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