The Ultimate Quacks (Part 2)

      No Comments on The Ultimate Quacks (Part 2)

The fraud started in the 1940’s when the Rockefeller Foundation wanted to corner the drug market. The Carnegie Foundation established a commission headed by Abraham Flexner and subsidized by John Rockefeller who had just purchased stock in pharmaceutical companies.

The commissions final report, in 1910, produced an almost instantaneous revision of medical education. The total absence of standards for medical education and clinical practice in the USA led to the passage of the federal Pure Food and Drugs Act of 1906, and to the publication in 1910 of the Flexner report.

It’s amazing how medical scientists will get rough and tough when attacking homeopathy, touting how their own medicine is “based on the gold standard of scientific evidence!” and yet when it really comes down to it, their scientific evidence is just a jug of quackery mixed with a pinch of wishful thinking and a wisp of pseudoscientific gobbledygook, all framed in the language of scientism by members of the FDA who wouldn’t recognize real science if they tripped and fell into a vat full of it.

Big Pharma and the FDA have based their entire system of scientific evidence on a placebo fraud! And if the placebo isn’t a placebo, then the scientific evidence isn’t scientific.
Oh, but wait. They’ll call it science because they wish the placebo to be a placebo. Yep — the clinical researchers are now psychics, mediums and fortune tellers who simply decree that little pill of olive oil to “be a placebo!” while waving their hands over it in a gesture borrowed from David Copperfield.

Hope also has a huge role to place in all this. The more you hope your placebos are really placebos, the better results you’ll get. In fact, in reporting on this whole fiasco, the lead researcher of the study uncovering all this, Dr Beatric Golomb, said, “We can only hope that this hasn’t seriously systematically affected medical treatment.”

But of course it has. (And by the way, no disrespect toward Dr Golomb. She deserves kudos for being willing to tackle this subject which will no doubt make her very unpopular among the cult of Scientism as practiced by conventional medical researchers today.)

How to improve your clinical trial results? For improved results, try to use the most harmful placebo substances you can. For example, in real clinical trials involving AIDS patients — who tend to be lactose intolerant — researchers have used pills made of, guess what? Lactose!

That’s sort of like running a clinical trial on a cure for heroin addiction and using heroin as the placebo, isn’t it? Somehow our drug worked “better than placebo.” Funny how that works, isn’t it? And if you still don’t get the results you want, just start inventing your own data like other clinical trial researchers do. Remember Dr Scott Reuben? This highly-respected clinical trial researcher faked at least twenty-one clinical trials for Big Pharma.. His fraudulent clinical trials are still being cited to sell prescription medications!

Be well

Dr Sundardas

The Ultimate Quacks (Part 1)

      No Comments on The Ultimate Quacks (Part 1)

 

We already know that clinical trials are rife with fraud. Most of the clinical trials used by pharmaceutical companies to win FDA approval of their drugs, for example, are funded by pharmaceutical companies. And it is a verifiable fact that most clinical trials tend to find results that favor the financial interests of whatever organization paid for them. So what’s to stop Big Pharma from scheming up the perfect placebo that would harm patients just enough to make their own drugs look good by comparison?

It now appears that all those thousands of clinical trials conducted over the last few decades comparing pharmaceuticals to placebo pills must now be completely thrown out as utterly non-scientific. And why? Because the placebos used in the studies weren’t really placebos at all, rendering the studies scientifically invalid. This is the conclusion from researchers at the University of California who published their findings in the October issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine. They reviewed 167 placebo-controlled trials published in peer-reviewed medical journals in 2008 and 2009 and found that 92 percent of those trials never even described the ingredients of their placebo pills.

Why is this important? Because placebo pills are supposed to be inert. But nothing is inert, it turns out. Even so-called “sugar pills” contain sugar, obviously. And sugar isn’t inert. If you’re running a clinical trial on diabetics, testing the effectiveness of a diabetes drug versus a placebo then obviously your clinical trial is going to make the diabetes drug look better than placebo if you use sugar pills as your placebo.

Some placebo pills use olive oil which may actually improve heart health. Other placebo pills use partially-hydrogenated oils which harm heart health. Yet only 8 percent of clinical trials bothered to list the placebo ingredients at all!

It turns out there are absolutely no FDA rules regarding the choice or composition of placebos used in clinical trials. Technically, a clinical trial director could use eye of newt or lizard’s legs as placebo and would not even be required to mention such nefarious details in the trial results ala Shakespeare. That would cause trouble, trouble, boil and bubble!

Placebos are usually provided by the very same company funding the clinical trial! Do you detect any room for fraud in this equation? How drug companies can fake clinical trials with selected placebo pills

Placebo performance strongly influences whether drugs are approved by the FDA, by the way. As the key piece of information on its regulatory approval decisions, the FDA wants to know whether a drug works better than placebo. That’s the primary requirement! If they work even 5% better than placebo, they are said to be “efficacious” (meaning they “work”). This is true even if the placebo was selected and used specifically to make the drug look good by comparison. You see, if there are no regulations or rules regarding placebo, then none of the placebo-controlled clinical trials are scientifically valid.

Be well

Dr Sundardas

Are we turning our ADHD kids into “speed” addicts?

      No Comments on Are we turning our ADHD kids into “speed” addicts?

Just how dangerous are the amphetamine stimulant drugs prescribed for children with so-called ADHD? According to scientific research funded by the FDA and the National Institute of Mental Health, drugs such as Ritalin increase the risk of sudden death by five hundred percent among children and teens.

In these cases of sudden death, the child suddenly collapses and dies, only to be discovered later by parents or siblings. That’s what happened to Matthew Hohmann in 2004 ands more and more children at a rate that’s 500 percent higher than would be considered typical for children of a similar age and health status.

ADHD drugs like Ritalin are, of course, amphetamine stimulants. They used to be sold on the street as “speed,” but now they’re prescribed by psychiatrists to children after a subjective diagnosis of a fictitious disease: ADHD — a “disorder” which has no measurable biological symptoms whatsoever.

Interestingly, the FDA banned ephedra, an herbal stimulant, after a handful of consumers died from consuming huge amounts of the herb in a desperate effort to lose weight. In that case, in banning the herb, the FDA announced “the risks outweigh the benefits,” declaring that “ephedra is not safe at any dose.” However vaccines are considered perfectly safe even though there are no double blind studies done on their safety or their efficacy. Look at my previous article on “Toxic Story” about mercury.

In great contrast to that, even as children are literally dropping dead after taking ADHD drugs, the FDA is now insisting “the benefits are worth the risks.”

But what benefits, exactly, are they talking about? There are no trusted scientific studies whatsoever showing ADHD drugs like Ritalin have any long-term positive effect on children. In fact, the available studies show that ADHD drugs stunt the physical growth of children while impairing brain development. Children who take these drugs, in other words, are not merely at a 500 percent increased risk of sudden death; they are almost assured to be stunted in their brain and body growth by this dangerous amphetamine stimulant drug.

The only real benefits to ADHD drugs, it turns out, are the financial benefits to the drug companies. With hundreds of millions of doses of ADHD drugs sold around the world each year, Big Pharma is raking in the profits while children are dropping dead in their own homes. So when the FDA says “the benefits are worth the risks,” what they mean is that the financial benefits to the drug companies are worth the risks to the lives of children.When parents take their children to psychiatrists and are told to put them on drugs like Ritalin, most parents believe what the doctors say. They believe the FDA wouldn’t approve a drug so dangerous that it could kill their child without warning. And they believe the drug companies would never sell products that harm people.

But those beliefs are foolish. In reality, the FDA, the drug companies and the psychiatrists are all working in collusion, knowingly pushing dangerous, deadly drugs onto families for the sole purpose of generating profits. While children suffer and die, they cash in on the ADHD delusion, first by promoting a fictitious disease and then later through high-profit pharmaceutical quackery.

Be well

Dr Sundardas

SUGAR BLUES 2

      No Comments on SUGAR BLUES 2

Sugar and monosodium glutamate have one thing in common. People are more likely to buy products containing them if they are called something else. Consumers trying to avoid sugar have started reading food labels. Many have begun to think that sugar by another name is not really sugar. Manufacturers know that calling sugar evaporated cane juice for instance, fools people into thinking there is less sugar in the product. Many label readers have caught on to the fact that ingredients have to be listed in order, from the largest amount contained down to the smallest. By using different names for sugar, manufacturers can split the content among the different names, putting the idea of sugar further down on the label without actually reducing the amount of sugar in the product.

Once upon a time health food stores did not carry products containing sugar. Today what we think of as a “health food store” is often a type of hybrid resulting from the cross breeding of true health food stores with traditional grocery retailers. These new stores are trying to capitalize on having a healthy image, while their shelves are stocked with products containing processed sugar, often listed by one of its other names.

However, both evaporated cane juice and white sugar are both sucrose, and both contain 400 calories in 100 grams. Both evaporated cane juice and white cane sugar have been heavily processed to remove the molasses content. During this processing the vitamins, minerals, fiber, amino acids, and trace elements that make molasses nutritious have been striped away, leaving one of the purest chemicals ever manufactured. Only tiny amounts of vitamin A and calcium remain in evaporated cane juice. Following processing, evaporated cane juice is 99.5 percent sucrose, and white sugar is 99.9 percent sucrose. Turbinado sugar  is 99 percent sucrose.

Whether sugar is eaten in the form of white sugar, evaporated cane juice, turbinado, or any of the other names for it, its effect on the body is the same. When eaten in large amounts, or eaten without fat or protein, each of them will produce the same sort of insulin spike, weight gain, immune system suppression, and increased chance for diabetes. It has been implicated in Syndrome X and heart disease as well.

The big difference between evaporated cane juice and granulated sugar is the price, which runs about 8 to 10 dollars a pound for evaporated cane juice compared to about 1 to 3 dollars a pound for white sugar. If manufacturers are willing to spend the extra money to put the words evaporated cane juice on their labels, it means they know the public is seriously trying to avoid eating sugar and needs to be tricked into eating it anyway.

Our collective sweet tooth goes back to the days when we lived in caves and life was a physical event rather than a mental one, as it is now. We needed to eat foods high in nutrients in order to have energy to get through the physical challenges of the typical day. Sweets eaten back then were primarily berries and other fruits that contained beneficial nutrients, enzymes and many phytochemicals to keep us going strong. Back then, a sweet tooth was not a bad thing. But sugar craving still exists for the purpose of compelling people to seek high energy nutrition. Until that nutrition is obtained, sugar craving continues, leaving today’s people in that vicious circle where more nutrient depleted sweets are eaten, and more sugar craving signals are sent. For many people, sugar has almost completely replaced nutrient dense foods, with obesity and health issues as the results. Next time you want something sweet, eat some fruit.

Be well

Dr Sundardas

Anti-Cancer Minerals

      No Comments on Anti-Cancer Minerals

Any woman wanting to avoid breast cancer or its recurrence needs to be aware of the real risk factors. These are not the factors you hear about from the typical oncologist who is interested in pushing drugs. Imbalances in the body are the real risk factors that explain why women get breast cancer, not lack of drugs. The only way to avoid cancer or its recurrence is to address these imbalances. Two minerals, zinc and selenium, are key in maintaining balance in the body and keeping cancer away. Lack of zinc has been implicated not only in the initiation of breast cancer, but also in the transition, progression, and metastasis of the disease. When zinc is deficient, cellular functioning in the breast is compromised. (Genes and Nutrition, April 2) In a recent study done at the University of Washington, scientists investigated the signaling pathways modulated by selenium. They compared global gene expression profiles in mammary tissues from pubescent female rats maintained on a selenium (3ppm) diet with those on a standardized diet. The selenium-enriched diet altered the steady-state levels of genes involved in various cellular functioning, the most dramatic of which was the changes in the expression of multiple genes that regulate circadian rhythm.

The primary gene protecting women from breast cancer, p53, is thought to be the most frequently mutated or altered gene in the development of cancer. This gene requires zinc, and if it is missing, the gene becomes mutated, resulting in it becoming inactivated or suppressed. Dysfunction of p53 is well documented in the development of breast cancer, indicating that a zinc deficiency is a risk factor for breast cancer independent of the levels of boron, copper and calcium. In France, scientists report that estrogen receptor expression in breast cancers is associated with differentiated tumors and a more favorable prognosis. The greater the resemblance of cancerous breast cells to non-cancerous breast cells, the less threatening is the disease. Although the exact mechanism underlying the protection ERs play against cancer progression remains to be researched, these scientists studied the actions of ER alpha, and documented that one of the ways this ER inhibits invasion is though its first zinc finger. A zinc finger is a group of proteins organized around a zinc ion that can bind to DNA and influence gene regulation. (Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology, 2008)

The relationship between selenium status and intake among breast cancer patients was studied by scientists in Kuala Lumpur. 64 women with breast cancer and 127 matched controls were interviewed to obtain information on their habitual dietary intakes, demographic data, and medical history. Selenium status was determined from toenail and hair analysis. The researchers found that total energy and protein intake was significantly higher among controls than among the breast cancer cases. The selenium intake among the women with breast cancer was significantly lower than the controls. Breast cancer risk decreased with the increasing quartiles of selenium intake. Selenium in hair did not differ among breast cancer cases and controls, but selenium status in the nails of controls was significantly higher compared to the breast cancer cases. (Singapore Medical Journal, March 2009). Drink your minerals ladies

Be well

Dr Sundardas

TOXIC STORIES

      No Comments on TOXIC STORIES

The FDA has, for decades, ridiculously insisted that mercury fillings pose no health threat whatsoever to children. While dismissing hundreds of studies showing a clear link between mercury amalgam fillings (“silver fillings”) and disastrous neurological effects in the human body, the FDA denied the truth about mercury and effectively protected the mercury filling racket that has brought so much harm to so many people. For over a hundred years, a cabal of “mercury mongers” made up of the American Dental Association, mercury filling manufactu-  rers and indignant dentists have reaped windfall profits by implanting toxic fillings into the mouths of children, all while insisting that mercury — one of the most toxic heavy metals known to modern science — posed no health threat whatsoever.

That reign of toxicity ended  in June 2008. Thanks to the tireless, multi-year efforts of people like Charles Brown, National Counsel for Consumers for Dental Choice (www.ToxicTeeth.org), the FDA was forced to acknowledge a fact so fundamental that, by any measure of honest science, it should have adopted the position decades ago. What position is that? Simply that mercury is toxic to humans.

The FDA has to be sued to do its job of protecting consumers. The FDA’s stonewalling on this issue has been nothing less than a circus of politically-motivated denials, much like the Big Tobacco executives swearing under oath that “Nicotine is not addictive.” In similar style, the FDA insisted for decades that “Mercury is not toxic.” Both statements, as any sane person can readily conclude, are the outbursts of lunatics. Sadly, those lunatics somehow remain in charge of America’s food, drugs and cosmetics (and dental care), meaning that any real progress to protect the People must come from outside the FDA.

And that’s exactly what happened. Consumers for Dental Choice teamed up with Moms Against Mercury (www.MomsAgainstMercury.org) and sued the FDA and its commissioner whose name sounds like an evil-minded villian right out of a Marvel comic book: Von Eschenbach. The lawsuit, entitled, Moms Against Mercury et al. v. Von Eschenbach, Commissioner, et al was concluded in June 2008 with a reluctant agreement by the FDA to both change its website on the issue of mercury and to reclassify mercury within one year, following a period of public comment (which the agency will no doubt try to drag out as long as possible in order to avoid actually sticking to the terms of the lawsuit agreement).

Remarkably, the FDA’s website no longer claims mercury is harmless. The language has now been changed in dramatic fashion, reading: “Dental amalgams contain mercury, which may have neurotoxic effects on the nervous systems of developing children and fetus.”Speaking of people going mad with mercury, that’s the history of the term “as mad as a hatter.” As explained by Wikipedia:

There is scientific evidence behind the meaning of insanity. Mercury was used in the process of curing felt used in some hats. It was impossible for hatters to avoid inhaling the mercury fumes given off during the hat making process. Hatters and other men in working mills died early due to the residual mercury caused neurological damage, as well as confused speech and distorted vision. As the mercury poisoning progressed to dangerously high levels, sufferers could also experience psychotic symptoms, such as hallucinations.

Be well

Dr Sundardas

Manage Menopause Naturally

      No Comments on Manage Menopause Naturally

When a group of scientists began to study the incidence of osteoporosis in different countries, they found the highest incidence in countries like UK, Sweden, the United States of America and the lowest in China where the diet avoids all of the risk factors mentioned above as well as including all of the protective items that follow below. Osteoporosis that is not due to dis-ease can develop from malnutrition and malabsorption of Calcium and or Vitamin D. It can   also be triggered by a Vitamin C deficiency and a high acid ash (high protein) diet. A high phosphate intake or an iron overload can aggravate the condition also. Also smoking and drinking lots of milk.

Women’s bones are greatly influenced by hormonal fluctuations, poor nutritional uptake, diet, childbirth and exercise. Men’s bones are influenced by stress, diet and exercise only. While mild osteoporosis leads to stress fractures only, serious osteoporosis amongst the elderly result in hip fractures. While having bed rest for hip fractures, further bone loss occurs. The bed sores can get infected and gangrenous and they die. Hip bones and the  lumbar spine are particularly prone to fractures.

According to Dr Maurine Tsakok, head and senior consultant of Singapore General Hospital’s department of obstetrics and gynaecology, women taking soy bean products from dougan to miso soup to legumes like peanuts and beans are naturally increasing their estrogen levels. This is because soya products contained plant estrogens and if sufficient quantities are consumed (which was about three times more soya products a week than normal). In a retrospective study of 98 menopausal Singapore women only half were found they needed Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT). Dr Tsakok also found that two-fifths of the women who did not need HRT exercised regularly compared with about one- tenth of those on HRT.

Phytoestrogens and phytosterols have complex biochemical effects – acting as natural forms of estrogen stimulators (agonist receptor-site action) and protect against higher levels of estrogens by competitive inhibition (antagonist receptor-site action). This dual behaviour results in increasing declining natural estrogen levels as well as providing protection against sites that stimulate breast and uterus cells from becoming cancerous (normally caused by high levels of estrogen production).

Herbs can effectively lessen the effects of menopause and work as estrogen stimulators. The following are commonly used and ones you will find in Menopausal combined-herb formulations:

Black Cohosh – relieves hot flashes and vaginal dryness

Don Quai – relieves hot flashes and improves circulation. Contains beta-sitosterol.

Ginseng – balances stress, improves circulation, stimulates the immune system.

Vitex Agnus-Castus or Chasteberry – affects the pituitary and the stimulation of the three pituitary releasing hormones. Normalizes progesterone levels.

Valerian – natures valium. A calming agent.

Wild Yam – a prohormonal support

Licorice Root – Stimulates the adrenal glands by compensating for “weak adrenal” syndrome. simulating Aldosterone, the major blood pressure hormone (mineralocorticoid).

Be well

Dr Sundardas

www.NaturalTherapies.com

Andropause and Mid-life Crisis

      2 Comments on Andropause and Mid-life Crisis

As men age past age 40, hormonal changes occur that perceptibly inhibit physical, sexual, and cognitive function. The outward appearance of a typical middle-aged male shows in- creased abdominal fat and shrinkage of muscle mass, a hallmark effect of hormone imbal-lance. Loss of a feeling of well-being, sometimes manifesting as depression, is a common psychological complication of hormone imbalance. Until recently, these changes were attri- buted to “growing old,” and men were expected to accept the fact that their bodies were entering into a long degenerative process that would someday result in death.

A remarkable amount of data has been compiled indicating that many of the diseases that middle-aged men begin experiencing, including depression, fatigue, abdominal weight gain, alterations in mood and cognition, decreased libido, erectile dysfunction, prostate disease, and heart disease are directly related to hormone imbalances that are correctable with currently available drug and nutrient therapies. The onset of these symptoms usually appears in the early 50s, although with smokers the onset is significantly earlier.

Andropause is about biochemical changes that brings about physical and emotional changes. Mid-life crisis is an emotional event that brings about more emotional and less physical changes .They may occur independently or they may occur at the same time in which case the impact is multiplied. I think until their 40’s men generally buy into “I am a man and I have to do all this”, cultural and social programming. They do not t question that the load is heavy. At forty as they reach a certain maturity, they may begin to question why it has to be this way. They may even become aware of the load they are carrying and wonder why they should do this.

Certain characteristics displayed by individuals experiencing a mid-life crisis often include but are not limited to a vague and undefined feeling of restlessness for what they do not know . It can include the search of an undefined dream or goal, desire to achieve a feeling of youth- fulness, acquiring of unusual or expensive items such as clothing, muscle cars, jewelery, pay- ing extra special attention to physical appearance, need to spend more time alone or with cert- a certain peers, a deep sense of remorse for goals not accomplished, an underlying desire to initiate new sexual partnerships.

A poll conducted by Desertion Survivors found that 37.1% of respondents’ spouses/partners had deserted them after 20-30 years together, suggesting a strong link to mid-life crisis, with the 20-25 year bracket being the most common, accounting for 20.9% of the overall total.

Positive effects only occur if the individual succesfully negotiates the mid-life crisis.. When they do then they realise  they  are actually in a time of their lives when they can afford to do the things they wanted to do when they were young, which may explain the indulgences in certain commodities or activities. Physically we can do specific hormones and blood tests that would help identify what hormones and issues need to be addressed. We routinely check our male patients’ blood levels of estrogen, testosterone, thyroid, and DHEA to determine what they real picture is. Psychologically, I run specific seminars and programmes that help to clean up old psychological baggage as well as develop new proactive strategies for living.

Be well

Dr Sundardas  

www.NaturalTherapies.com

www.fftcentre.com

Western Medicine vs Wellness Medicine – The Paradigm Difference

      No Comments on Western Medicine vs Wellness Medicine – The Paradigm Difference

In western medicine, the whole concept of wellness is overlooked. Western medicine practitioners and scientists have made great advances in the management of pathology by studying disease. When they study physiology, they do so to better understand abnormal physiology. They do not study physiology in the hope that they can better understand how to optimize physiology.

Due to this perspective, there has been a great deal of skepticism about subtle energetic screening devices and healing technologies. The fundamental challenge in the model can be stated in the following ways.

1)      Subtle energy changes predate biochemical dysfunctions/medical conditions (i.e. liver cirrhosis)

2)      Western medical professionals will typically ignore these changes because they will maintain these changes have no relation to any changes in physiology

3)      Wellness medicine practitioners who habitually look for these changes and successfully help to optimize the patient’s condition will avert the eventual development of these conditions

4)      The Western medical professional will then claim energetic changes have no relationship to pathology because the patient never went on to develop the  alleged biochemical dysfunction/medical condition  (i.e. liver cirrhosis)

The medical model basically employs the so-called lock-and-key paradigm of biochemistry, according to which, any biochemical reaction needs a specific arrangement of the reacting molecules. Meanwhile, a living organism and its functions cannot be reduced to a set of chemical reactions, even if it were possible to account for all of them. This constitutes a serious problem of any acute treatment. Any illness – actually illness in general – generates a kind of communicational gap within the organism’s functional network. Since living beings are highly integrated open dynamic systems, their health – all health in general – is supported by a permanent mass, energy and information exchange. The dynamics of communication thus is vital for organisms.

One of the fundamental communication processes that our body uses to communicate with us when we are approaching dis-ease is our emotions. Our emotions are our primary mechanisms that our body minds use to communicate how well our lives physical, mental or emotional are working. In the Western Medicine Model when you are feeling emotionally unwell like depression, they would prescribe prozac. In the Wellness Medicine Model, when you feel unwell, you are getting a signal about some state of disharmony whether physical, mental or emotional.

So do you want to pay attention to your Body-Mind or do you wish to drug yourself so you that feel nothing? That is the real difference between Western Medicine and Wellness Medicine.

Be well

Dr Sundardas

www.NaturalTherapies.com

www.fftcentre.com

For any questions with regards to related posts, do submit your queries below and I will answer to it when I have time. Thank you friends..

The Dangers of Sleep Deprivation

      4 Comments on The Dangers of Sleep Deprivation

A few months ago, many of us heard about the sad demise of Ranjan Das from Bandra, Mumbai. Ranjan, just 42 years of age, was the CEO of SAP-Indian Subcontinent, the youngest CEO of an MNC in India. He was very active in sports, was a fitness freak and a marathon runner. It was common to see him run on Bandra’s Carter Road. Just after Diwali, on 21st Oct, he returned home from his gym after a workout, collapsed with a massive heart attack and died. He is survived by his wife and two very young kids.

It was certainly a wake-up call for corporate India let alone corporate Asia. However, it was even more disastrous for runners amongst us. Since Ranjan was an avid marathoner  ( in Feb 09, he ran the Chennai Marathon) the question arises as to why an exceptionally active, athletic person succumbs to heart attack at 42 years of age.

Was it the stress?

While Ranjan had mentioned that he faced a lot of stress, that is a common element in most of our lives. We used to think that by being fit, one can conquer the bad effects of stress. So I doubted if the cause was stress.

However, everyone missed out a small line in the reports that Ranjan used to make do with 4-5 hours of sleep. This is an earlier interview of Ranjan on NDTV in the program ‘Boss’ Day Out’: Boss’ Day Out: Ranjan Das of SAP India.

Here he himself admits that he would love to get more sleep ( and that he was not proud of his ability to manage without sleep, contrary to what others extolled ).

I have outlined the key points below in the hope it will save some lives.

  • Short sleep duration ( <5 or 5-6 hours ) increased risk for high BP by 350% to 500% compared to those who slept longer than 6 hours per night. Paper published in 2009. As you know, high BP kills.
  • Young people ( 25-49 years of age ) are twice as likely to get high BP if they sleep less. Paper published in 2006.
  • Individuals who slept less than 5 hours a night had a 3-fold increased risk of heart attacks. Paper published in 1999.
  • Complete and partial lack of sleep increased the blood concentrations of High sensitivity C-Reactive Protein (hs-cRP), the strongest predictor of heart attacks. Even after getting adequate sleep later, the levels stayed high!!
  • Just one night of sleep loss increases very toxic substances in body such as Interleukin-6 (IL-6), Tumour Necrosis Factor-Alpha (TNF-alpha) and C-reactive protein (cRP). They increase risks of many medical conditions, including cancer, arthritis and heart disease. Paper published in 2004.
  • Sleeping for <=5 hours per night leads to 39% increase in heart disease. Sleeping for <=6 hours per night leads to 18% increase in heart disease. Paper published in 2006.

For lack of space, I cannot explain here the ideal sleep architecture. But in brief, sleep is composed of two stages: REM ( Rapid Eye Movement ) and non-REM. The former helps in mental consolidation while the latter helps in physical repair and rebuilding. During the night, you alternate between REM and non-REM stages 4-5 times.

The earlier part of sleep is mostly non-REM. During that period, your pituitary gland releases growth hormones that repair your body. This part of sleep is when HGH or Human Growth Hormone is naturally generated. If you are not asleep, what happens is that you generate cortisol which is a stress hormone that has the long term effects of accelerating ageing and leading the production of toxic substances like IL-6, TNF-alpha and cRP.

In Chinese Medicine we have the concept of chi and its movement in different meridians at different times. The Liver Meridian is particularly active from 1.00 am to 3.00am. If you are asleep, your Liver Meridian can properly detoxify as well as your mesenchymal matrix. If you are not, then this function is perverted and your natural cellular detoxification mechanisms start shutting down. This prepares your body for the development of severe and chronic diseases.

The latter part of sleep is more and more REM type. For you to be mentally alert during the day, the latter part of sleep is more important. No wonder when you wake up with an alarm clock after 5-6 hours of sleep, you are mentally irritable throughout the day (lack of REM sleep). And if you have slept for less than 5 hours, your body is in a complete physical mess ( lack of non-REM sleep ), you are tired throughout the day, moving like a zombie and your immunity is way down ( I’ve been there, done that ).

Unfortunately, Ranjan Das is not alone when it comes to missing sleep. Many of us are doing exactly the same, perhaps out of ignorance.

Two years ago, I developed a devastating infection called rheumatic fever and experienced heart failure (heart function dropped to 30%). This was a period in my life when I was eating well, exercising well (too well- averaging almost 12 hours in aerobics, weights and Martial arts) and sleeping 5 hours a day. There was one month when I worked right through non-stop and the infection struck. My blood profile was perfect except for elevated  CRP, Creatinine Kinase and the infection marker. All the other markers of heart disease like cholesteol, triglycerides, glucose, sodium and potassium were perfect. It has taken me almost two years to get back to normal.

Please forward this blog to as many of your colleagues/friends as possible, especially those who might be short-changing their sleep. If we can save even one young life because of this blog, I would be the happiest person on earth.

Be well

Dr Sundardas