Lord Norton mentioned in a recent blog that we carry on working even when the House is in recess. This week I attended an interesting policy meeting at the Department of Health with the new Minister for Care Services Paul Burstow MP, who has taken over the Chair of the Ministerial Advisory Group on Research in Dementia. This may sound like a minority ‘anorak’ speciality but dementia is economically the most burdensome disease in terms of care costs and the Government has recognised at last the impact of the costs on the public and private purse but also the devastating effect of the disease on individuals and their families. Frankly I was surprised and delighted when I saw “Research in Dementia” as a key priority in the Coalition’s health policy manifesto. The group was set up by Phil Hope MP, the Minister for Care Services in the last government and credit is due to him for initiating the work in this area. The Group has a wealth of brains from neuroscience, the research councils, the pharmaceutical industry, the voluntary sector and from public health and clinical specialties. The work they and the sub-groups have been doing this past six months is pretty impressive. The idea is to agree a set of priorities for research funding but is also crucially about the complex logistics of brain research, the difficulties of marrying scientists and clinicians and how to create research capacity in the basic sciences and clinical and care settings. There are agreed prevention messages to get out to the public. We can’t at present prevent pure Alzheimer’s type dementia (which may well be less common than people think) but we would prevent many common types of vascular dementias if the usual public health advice on blood pressure control and heart disease prevention were followed. Looking after your heart looks after your brain too.
Baroness Murphy,
The body is such a unity is it not? You mention cardi-vascular health as brain health. Have you seen the studies that show the effect of dental hygiene and oral health on cardio-vascular health?
FWSIII:
If by “The body is such a unity is it not ?” you mean
(‘) This body is fearfully and wonderfully made (‘) ?
or simply
(‘)The body is a strong unity, is it not ?(‘) ?
then you’ll meet disagreement and agreement !
((( I find no statement in the Post that (“) the body is a unity (“) nor clear ground for inference thereof: in fact the Post does not clearly include Holism; only two tenuous medically-reductive links between ‘blood pressure’ and ‘heart disease’. Even that over-minimalised isolation the baroness has swiftly drawn into a pseudo-conclusive truism “Looking after your heart looks after your brain too” ))).
There are no less than eleven (11) medically-physiological human-body-systems; not just two; neither do merely two hold sway under the old Descriptive nor under the new Generative theories; nor under contrasting Reductionism versus Holism medical approaches.
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Your next submission appears to be that “dental hygiene and oral health” have a ((positive or good effect on)) cardio-vascular health ((whereas dental-dirtiness and oral illness have a negative or bad effect on c-v health)) ((?))
Doubtless that is a part of the Matter even to the non-trained mind.
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Other research is probably of much greater relevance to, and of possible-power to inform and thereby to help in, self-care, medical-care, or both:
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References:
“The Holy Bible” by Various authors, editors and interpreters: Psalm 139 v14.
“The Thinking Body” Todd;
“Holistic living” Pietroni;
“Superimmunity” Pearsall;
“Lifestreams” Boadella.
“Fair words butter no parsnips” by English Folklore.
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(247 words)(continuable).
=============== JSDM1223M20Sep2010
JSDM,
I hope I am not shirking my Supreme earthly spiritual Shepherd’s advice to Britain here when I say things are relative. Indeed I think he warned of a different kind of relatvism. Baroness Murphy’s emphasis on reviving the role of physician as doctor (teacher in Latin) was implied, vascuale health was encouraged and all this was in a post on dementia. I found that relatively holistic. Relative your comments she is indded the champion of the cubby hole of medicine but I am somewhere in between…
SP. relativism, vascular, indeed
grm. “to your comments”
This topic should be titled “Research into Dementia Disease”;
the more so because Britain’s ‘leaders’ still think “Health” means managing and treating Diseases and Illnesses;
and they are along with the British Medical Association still back pre-1978 UN Declaration of Primary Health Care, at which time all of Britain’s ‘leaders’ instantly swept the whole new spirit of “primary health care and primary self-care” under the pre-existing and already long-dominant ‘medical-monopoly’ of “primary medical care”.
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Medical-care kicks in only after the disease has become established.
Even the existing prevention policy is grossly under-skilled, under-funded, and medical-professions dominated.
Had the two Legislative Houses of Parliament had their eyes open and their minds clearly functioning, they would have (and possibly still could) make a stand in favour of an Expert Health-Maintenance and long-term Wellbeing-building Service in its own right and separate funding; and parliament could have legislated better focal-power to the medical-services to be what they super-dominantly are “Disease, Illness, Bad-health treatment and impairment-disability management Services” (1) Casualty (2) Infectious Diseases (3) Degenerative Disease .
The latter ‘Degenerative’ group, of which there is actually only One underlying Disease, manifesting as the over-400 symptom-variations from Arthritis through Cancer and Diabetes to Heart-disorders, that One Disease being Lipotoxemia, I have little doubt one variety of it is Dementia, another Alzheimer’s and another Parkinson’s.
The real underlying Degenerative Disease is a complex Lipotoxemia, in itself a kind of ‘Gorgon’s head’ or ‘Devil’s Brew’ of variously-toxified lipids.
Incidentally, toxemia also manifests profusely even in children, such as aluminium-poisoning whereby the totally unaware child becomes agitated, losing
insight and self-control, but some
parents and teachers are still punishing such children as exhibiting ‘bad’, ‘disruptive’, ‘bizarre’ or ‘anti-social, behaviour.
Visit any public library in Britain and where there is a shelf labelled “Health” you will find dominantly “Illness” and “Disease” books.
That in itself should have signalled to some Responsible Body that Britain’s mind-functioning is being insidiously impaired, unable to distinguish between “Health” and “Illness”.
That would be ‘unbelievable’ to the normal human mind long before “Are You Smarter Than Ten-Year-Old” level of mind-functioning holds up a mirror to our civilisation.
That the Clinical-Psychology profession should continue to be blind to that impairment of British mind-functioning should be another flashing Red warning signal: but in their central-tower in the NHS neither clinical-psychologists nor nurses and reach-out workers recommend even one primary self-health care nor one holistic-living DIY or group-learning book; and they actually avoid recommending any ‘health’ book, and are reluctant to make reference to public-library “Illness” books, also.
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“A Stitch in Time would have Saved Nine”; and maybe it is still not too late; after all, we now know that quite a number of Strokes are ‘reversible’;
and that one can take-over management of one’s own Health and even of some of the illnesses that may beset one between now and the Departing-Time.
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A Few Powerfully-Helpful Health Supportive Books:
“Superimmunity” by Pearsall;
“The Centering Book” by Hendricks & Wills;
“Wisdom of the Body Moving” by Hartley;
“Life Energy” by Diamond;
“Lifestreams” by Boadella;
“Anatomy of the Spirit” by Myss;
“Holistic Living” by Pietroni.
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I have mentioned the above before, and on the Lords of the Blog since May2010.
Giving more ‘people’ a ‘say’, and ‘perhaps parliament needs to listen more to the people’, will continue vapid without fully-connecting that ‘say’ and that ‘listening’ to fully and healthily functioning minds.
Baroness, you have mentioned it: other Peers up there topically including the Religious Lords and Lord Norton this week are in this ‘degenerative diseases’ loop.
Do any of them
“Consider the lilies of the field” ?
Do any of them actually have a fully-functioning and health mind, to heed their chosen Leader’s other learning-switch-on, to
“have ears to hear” ?
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And there is more; much more.
JSDM0113Sn19Sep10
FWSlll, the link between oral and dental health is interesting but not as straight forward as many dental web sites suggest. (Remember dentists are looking for trade). Because of the multi-factorial nature of dental infection and cardiovascular disease, confirming a causal association is difficult, and the published results are conflicting. The main problem with the majority of these studies has been the inadequate control of numerous confounding factors, leading to an overestimation of the risk and the imprecise measurement of the confounding variables, resulting in underestimation of the risks. A meta-analysis by Meurman, Sanz and Janket in Finland in 2004 of prospective and retrospective follow-up studies has shown that periodontal disease may increase the risk of CVD by approximately 20%. The association between periodontal disease and stroke is even stronger. Overall, it appears that periodontal disease may indeed contribute to the pathogenesis of cardiovascular disease, although the statistical effect size is small. Keep brushing and flossing and using JSDM’s principle, don’t eat nuffink…
Turning to JSDM, since time immemorial people interested in healthcare have been trying to move to a public health approach, investing in prevention and promoting well being. This has to be done mainly through education since we are talking mainly diet and exercise but this wouldn’t solve the problem that people would continue to get ill. While some cancers are preventable, some are not. Some brain tumours for example have their origins before birth in embryonic tissue. You wouldn’t want us to stop treating people’s illnesses would you? Public Health has had some wins, the reduction in smoking and control of blood pressure has had a major impact on heart disease and stroke in the US and is probably having the same impact here in certain quarters (not the Glaswegians though). So you are right to stress prevention is better than cure but we can’t abandon those who are in need of care now can we?
Baroness Murphy’s reply is not Noble; more Gutterlike, kicking off as it does with personal-attack on JSDM, on good clean and clear argumentation, on authoritative-references, and on his overall-submission’s content and intent.
With the falsehood “using JSDM’s principle, don’t eat nuffink…” BM’s first fails the principle of Clarity which, to the point, is not mine but that of honest humans and in particular of competent proponents and qualified teachers of good-communication, clear-thinking, and honest-argumentation.
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Shall I go on ?
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The baroness then exhibits complete ignorance of what it is to be a victim (oneself) of Fallaciousness.
She lacks in the principle of Charity, having failed to show comprehension of submissions, argumentation, and authoritative-sources.
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Shall I go on ?
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She fails in the third principle of good-communication and clear-reasoning, namely in willingness and ability to be Self-Corrective.
Instead she falsely-attributes a fantasy antagonism to JSDM, and tries to substitute 168 words conning the honest British reader in faint praise of a largely-failed and failing position that she is obviosly herself a victim of.
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Shall I go on ?
Certainly I shall go on as long as I have breath and the johnmiles1.wordpress.com site is available;
but quite possibly not trust the Lords of the Blog e-site if its Peers continue to be as Flawed and Gutterlike as some such as the above baroness are turning out to be.
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JohnSydneyDentonMiles alias JSDM
1331M20Sep2010.(<240 words).
Baroness Murphy,
Thank you for the well-informed summary. I hope to follow some leads you included there — eventually…
“the studies that show the effect of dental hygiene and oral health on cardio-vascular health?”
They are surely only co-inci-dental!
Holism is the answer; once lost not easily regained.
The Baroness’ usual interesting posts; thank you.
It is not just Dentists who are doing business but Doctors/physicians too.
Being “demented” may well includes having no teeth, and being rather less able to communicate than previously the case.
Putting them back in again can help restore
the power of speech, but less so as the patient gets older.
Keeping the original ones as perfect as possible, unto the day of death, is a worthy ambition.
You might say that Sugar causes dementia….. which reminds me…!
GH – Sugar has been said by some serious medical or nutrition researchers to “lock toxins into the body”.
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I think it is still very useful in Medicine to distinguish between Reductivism (focusing-down diagnosis and subsequent healing by symptoms & signs ‘elimination’) and the newer Holism (appreciating the patient as a whole-person and healing by appropriately nurturing every domain of that person’s life as well as referring to specialists for fine-tuning any disease diagnosis and focally-treating or cutting that out).
Such distinction is I think useful in other Disciplines too.
Plato had put it simply (too simply perhaps, in the light of the real-world’s daily and now parliamentarily five-yearly ‘mix-ups’)
“In order for man to succeed in life, God provided him with two means, education and physical-acgtivity. Not separately, one for the soul and the other for the body, but for the two together. With these two means, man can attain perfection”.
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Another daily condiment, Salt, is a slow crippler too; yet it is reported that such Sodium taken with the right proportion of a Potassium salt gets ‘neutralised’ and swept down and away out of the body harmlessly, instead of lodging and becoming insidiously pathogenic and contributing to the eye-iris ‘silver-ring’ sign of poor-health.
1631T21
The advantage of salt JDSM, being the addition of iodine in areas distant from the coast.
A very useful purpose indeed, when you consider the problems of some of the people of Pakistan and Bangla Desh.
The disadvantage of GH’s “salt – iodine” here is its red-herringness.
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JSDM1451Th23