Health & Fitness

At just 24, Agi Akur has the self-confidence of someone twice her age – but it hasn’t always been that way. The model tells Body+Soul how she’s calling on the fashion and beauty industries to embrace diversity.

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Scientists showed that mice exposed to potentially lethal levels of total body radiation were protected from radiation damage if they had specific types of bacteria in their gut. They demonstrated that the bacteria mitigated radiation exposure and enhanced the recovery of blood cell production as well as repair of the gastrointestinal tract.

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Dr. Paul Saladino is the author of “The Carnivore Code.” I’ve previously interviewed him about the carnivore diet and the impact of metabolic health on COVID-19 outcomes. The video¹ above features Saladino on a recent episode of the Joe Rogan podcast.

It’s a three-hour conversation, but my focus here is on Saladino’s viewpoints on omega-6 seed oils, and the surprising fact that conventional chicken and pork are significant stealth sources of oxidized omega-6 fats that can contribute to ill health by impairing vital mitochondrial signaling.

Vegetable Oils Are Responsible for Epidemic of Ill Health

In recent years, it’s become increasingly clear that one of the most damaging components in our modern diet is processed vegetable oils, as they contain excessive amounts of oxidized omega-6 linoleic acid, a polyunsaturated fat (PUFA). The biological damage they cause is even worse than that caused by refined sugar and high fructose corn syrup.

According to ophthalmologist Dr. Chris Knobbe, who has researched the matter extensively, virtually all chronic metabolic and degenerative diseases, including age-related macular degeneration, are primarily caused by a preponderance of industrial vegetable oils in the diet.

The reason for this is because these oils trigger mitochondrial dysfunction that then drives the disease process, and several studies^{2,3,4,5,6,7,8} have demonstrated the truth of this. The good news is that simply replacing dangerous oils with healthy saturated fats can go a long way toward boosting your health and reducing your risk of chronic disease.

Unfortunately, many health authorities have insisted — and still insist — omega-6-rich oils like soybean, corn and canola oil are healthier than saturated animal fats such as butter and lard, and this myth has been a tough one to dismantle, despite the evidence against it.

How Processed Vegetable Oils Harm Your Health

There are many reasons to avoid or eliminate industrially processed seed oils from your diet. As mentioned, vegetable oils are a concentrated source of omega-6 linoleic acid, which can lead to a severe imbalance between the omega-6 to omega-3 ratio in your diet.

In fact, I’ve found it is extremely difficult to correct this imbalance simply by taking more omega-3. In fact, excess omega-3 can also contribute to ill health. Your first and most important step is to cut down on the omega-6s, or else you’re always going to be nutritionally lopsided.

Even organic, biodynamic olive oil can shift your ratio in the wrong direction, as olive oil is also a source of omega-6 linoleic acid. If, like me, you’re in the habit of eating olive oil, you may want to limit your intake to 1 tablespoon per day or less. The problem, really, is twofold:

1. Most people get far too much omega-6 and too little omega-3, thus ending up with a lopsided ratio, and this ratio is what impacts health. Ideally, this ratio would be close to 1-to-1
2. Most of the omega-6 people eat has been damaged and oxidized through processing

Then there’s the issue of direct toxicity from pesticides and herbicides. Most of the vegetable oils produced today — especially canola, corn and soy — are made from genetically engineered (GE) crops, and are therefore a significant source of toxic glyphosate exposure.

Thirdly, vegetable oils degrade to extremely toxic oxidation products when heated, including 4-hydroxynonenal (4HNE) cyclic aldehydes,⁹ which are what cause oxidized low-density lipoprotein (LDL) associated with heart disease. Aldehydes also crosslink tau protein and create neurofibrillary tangles, thereby contributing to the development of neurodegenerative diseases. Processed vegetable oils also harm health by:

Increasing inflammation.10

Damaging the endothelium (the cells lining your blood vessels) and causing an increase in penetration of LDL and very low-density lipoprotein (VLDL) particles into the subendothelium. In other words, these oils get integrated in your cell and mitochondrial membranes, and once these membranes are impaired, it sets the stage for all sorts of health problems. As discussed in my July 2020 interview with Knobbe, the PUFAs from vegetable oils, seed oils and trans fats are primarily stored in your fat cells, opposed to being used for fuel, and have a half-life of 600 to 680 days.11 They also get incorporated into tissues, including your heart and brain. One result of this could be memory impairment and increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease, which is exactly what they found with canola oil.12 As reported in one 2017 study:13 “Our findings do not support a beneficial effect of chronic canola oil consumption on two important aspects of AD pathophysiology which includes memory impairments as well as synaptic integrity. While more studies are needed, our data do not justify the current trend aimed at replacing olive oil with canola oil.”

Damaging your mitochondria and DNA by making your cell membranes more permeable, allowing things to enter that shouldn’t.

Making the cell membrane less fluid, which impacts hormone transporters in the cell membrane and slows your metabolic rate.

Inhibiting cardiolipin, an important component of the inner membrane of your mitochondria that needs to be saturated in the omega-3 fat DHA to function properly. Cardiolipin can be likened to a cellular alarm system that triggers apoptosis (cell death) by signaling caspase-3 when something goes wrong with the cell. If the cardiolipin is not saturated with DHA, it cannot signal caspase-3, and hence apoptosis does not occur. As a result, dysfunctional cells are allowed to continue to grow, which can turn into a cancerous cell.

Inhibiting the removal of senescent cells, i.e., aged, damaged or crippled cells that have lost the ability to reproduce and produce inflammatory cytokines that rapidly accelerate disease and aging.

Stripping your liver of glutathione (which produces antioxidant enzymes), thereby lowering your antioxidant defenses.14

Inhibiting delta-6 desaturase (delta-6), an enzyme involved in the conversion of short-chained omega-3s to longer chained omega-3s in your liver.15

Exposing you to toxic 4-hydroxynonenal (4HNE), which forms during the processing of most vegetable oils, even if the oil is obtained from organic crops — 4HNE is highly toxic, especially to your gut bacteria, and consumption of 4HNE has been correlated with having an obesogenic balance of gut flora. It also causes DNA damage and instigates free radical cascades that damage your mitochondrial membranes.16

The Molecular Biology of PUFAs

If you want to go deep and geek out on the molecular biology of what is going on with excessive linoleic acid (LA) intake, then I strongly advise watching the video above.

Saladino interviews veterinarian Peter Dobromylskyj, who maintains the Hyperlipid Blog.¹⁷ In it, they describe in great detail how eating these seed oils and other foods high in LA, like chicken and pork, destroy mitochondrial signaling in the adipocyte and disrupt your metabolic functioning.

One key point from this Dobromylskyj interview is the explanation of how PUFAs break your metabolic mechanism and contribute to obesity. As explained by Saladino, as he reviews a study on this topic:

“Let’s look at what happens when you give humans a bunch of polyunsaturated fats … You are supposed to be insulin resistant in ketosis. That’s how your body partitions glucose to the cells that need it.

And here you have a ketogenic diet based on … canola oil, safflower oil or soybean oil, and you see people remain insulin sensitive when they’re in ketosis. This is clear evidence that polyunsaturated fats are breaking your metabolism. Glucose is lower because it’s going into your cells; it’s making bigger cells. You’re getting fat.”

For clarity, does this mean a ketogenic diet, meaning a diet high in healthy fats and low in non-vegetable carbs, is fattening? No. The take-home message here is that a proper ketogenic diet must be based on healthy saturated fats, not destructive vegetable seed oils that are loaded with LA.

Eating a high-fat diet, when the fats are primarily LA from processed vegetable and seed oils, is far worse than eating a chronic high-carb diet. The type of fat is of crucial importance, as it impacts your mitochondrial, cellular and metabolic functioning.

Fats like LA can persist in your cell membranes for months to years, continuing to wreak havoc with your metabolism the entire time, while the sugar is quickly metabolized.

Aside from that, this also helps explain why processed foods are so fattening. It’s not just that they’re loaded with added sugars. They’re also loaded with LA that breaks your metabolic machinery and promotes fat accumulation and inflammation.

Choose Your Fats Carefully

Examples of healthy fats that belong in your diet include but are not limited to organic coconut oil, ghee, grass fed butter, lard, tallow, black seed oil (Nigella sativa), avocados, raw dairy products, olives, organic pastured eggs and raw nuts.

To learn more about the ins and outs of dietary fats, pick up a copy of my book “Superfuel: Ketogenic Keys to Unlock the Secrets of Good Fats, Bad Fats, and Great Health,” cowritten with James DiNicolantonio, Pharm.D., which gives more in-depth specifics on how to discriminate between healthy and harmful dietary fats. Dr. Catherine Shanahan’s list of good and bad cooking oils and fats is also useful.

Stealth Sources of Harmful PUFAs: Chicken and Pork

As explained by Saladino in the featured Rogan interview, aside from processed foods (which are loaded with vegetable oils) and vegetable cooking oils, there are also two common stealth sources of harmful PUFAs in the modern diet, namely conventionally farmed chicken and pork.

He shows a graph illustrating meat consumption, which has significantly risen over the decades. But it’s not the total consumption that is causing the problem, he notes. Specifically, the problem is not related to red meat consumption, which has actually gone down. Rather, it’s “lean white” meats, particularly chicken but also pork, that help drive the chronic disease trend. 

Long thought of as a healthier type of meat, primarily because it’s leaner than red meat, the problem with conventional chicken (and pork) is that the animals are fed corn — typically GE varieties that are farmed with glyphosate.

And what happens when animals are fed corn? The meat becomes high in omega-6 linoleic acid, as corn is high in this type of fat.¹⁸ So, as Saladino points out, high chicken consumption actually adds to your vegetable oil consumption, and can therefore contribute to systemic inflammation, mitochondrial dysfunction and metabolic ill health.

“PUFAs act differently in our body,” Saladino says in the Rogan interview. “At the level of our mitochondria, it looks like this polyunsaturated fat, this linoleic acid-rich vegetable oil, is signaling things differently.

There’s a lot of compelling evidence to suggest linoleic acid is driving adipocyte hypertrophy — the fat cells are getting bigger. Fat cells can do two things. They can get bigger or they can divide. When fat cells get big, and don’t divide, they eventually start leaking inflammatory mediators.”

This doesn’t mean you cannot eat chicken or pork. However, unlike cows, buffalo and lambs, these animals have only one stomach and as such any omega-6 fats they eat are not metabolized and stored in their tissues. Since these animals, even healthy organically grown animals, are typically fed grains, they are loaded with omega-6 fats and may have 10 TIMES the LA content that beef, lamb or buffalo do.

That is why I think it is really a good strategy to avoid eating these meats and replace them with animals which have far lower LA content. If you want to know how much LA you are eating simply go to cronometer.com and carefully enter your food that is accurately weighed out and you can see precisely how much LA you are eating. It would be great to get your daily intake under 10 grams per day.

Safeguard Your Health by Ditching Vegetable Oils

To recap, if you want to avoid dangerous fats of all kinds, your best bet is to significantly reduce or eliminate the following from your diet:

• Processed foods of all kinds
• Industrially processed cooking oils such as corn oil, canola oil, soy and cottonseed oils
• Conventionally farmed chicken
• Conventionally farmed pork

My comprehensive nutrition plan offers helpful guidance for this process. When cooking, coconut oil, butter, lard and ghee are healthy options. Also be sure to swap out margarines and vegetable oil spreads for organic butter, preferably made from raw grass fed milk. Butter is a healthy whole food that has received an unwarranted bad rap.

To further balance your omega-3 to omega-6 ratio you may also need a high-quality source of animal-based omega-3 fat, such as krill oil, if you’re not in the habit of eating small, fatty fish such as sardines, anchovies and mackerel, and/or wild caught Alaskan salmon.

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Twice each year, every U.S. state except Hawaii and Arizona transition from daylight saving time (DST) to standard time and back again.¹ Yet, the research is quite clear that meddling with time, and therefore sleep, has negative effects on your health.

DST was first introduced in 1918 when it was called "fast time."² The law was signed by the president to support the war effort. It followed a similar initiative in Germany that went into effect in 1916.³ After the war ended, the law was repealed and then reinstated during World War II.⁴ Three weeks after World War II ended, the law was again repealed.

By 1963, Time magazine called the resulting state of confusion a "chaos of clocks."⁵ Nearly 20 years after the end of World War II, DST was restored under the Uniform Time Act.⁶ This standardized when DST would begin and end, and gave states the option to stay on standard time year-round.

In 1973, Congress determined DST should be observed all year, but this was again changed in 1974 when the clocks were moved forward in the spring and fell back an hour in the fall.⁷ In 1986 the time officially changed at 2 a.m. on the first Sunday in April and the last Sunday in October.

The date in the fall changed in 2005 to the first Sunday in November in response to lobbying from the golf, barbecue and candy companies, which wanted more daylight during the evening hours to accommodate Halloween night and the traditional passing of sugar treats.⁸ The current dates and times have remained unchanged since 2007.

Long-Term Health Effects of Daylight Saving Time

Part of the risk posed by DST is that it can shrink the average amount of sleep an adult gets by up to 20 minutes during transitions.⁹ Chronic sleep disruption contributes to a rising number of people who are obese.¹⁰ Dr. Chris Winter, author of "The Sleep Solution: Why Your Sleep Is Broken and How to Fix It," explains how sleep is an integral part of your eating patterns by affecting the hormones ghrelin and leptin:¹¹

"Appetite in general is often not the body requesting food; it's the body anticipating food. When your body knows you eat lunch around 12:30 p.m. or so every day, it anticipates and prepares for the meal.

These two hormones are intimately associated with sleep, which is part of why when we're not sleeping well, we tend to overeat. It's a tight hormonal balance and daylight-saving shifts can absolutely throw it off."

A lack of sleep may also raise the risk you can experience a fatal accident. Dr. Beth Ann Malow from Vanderbilt University Medical Center and colleagues published a commentary reviewing large epidemiological studies that document these negative health effects.¹² Malow commented on their findings:¹³

"People think the one-hour transition is no big deal, that they can get over this in a day, but what they don't realize is their biological clock is out of sync. It's not one hour twice a year. It's a misalignment of our biologic clocks for eight months of the year.

When we talk about DST and the relationship to light, we are talking about profound impacts on the biological clock, which is a structure rooted in the brain. It impacts brain functions such as energy levels and alertness."

Another team of researchers published an analysis of the effect daylight saving time has on a spectrum of diseases.¹⁴ They gathered data using a population-based, cross-sectional analysis from an insurance claim data set of over 129 million patients in the U.S. and Sweden.

They evaluated the effect shifting time by one hour twice each year had on hundreds of age- and sex-specific health conditions. Their data confirmed past research results that heart attacks,¹⁵ accidents,¹⁶ mental health concerns¹⁷ and immune-related diseases¹⁸ increase during the time shift.

The analysis also revealed several surprises. For instance, it showed an increase in substance abuse in men ages 41 to 60 near DST.¹⁹ They also found immune-related disorders that had not been associated in the past with daylight saving time occur more often in the first week following the spring DST shift.

The analyses revealed a higher number of complications during pregnancy and childbirth, and increases in renal failure.²⁰

"To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to report the DST-related RRs [relative risk] of disorders involving the digestive system (such as noninfective enteritis and colitis), which rose three percent after the spring DST shift in females over 60 and six percent in males under ten."

Your Suprachiasmatic Nucleus Is Involved

Your body runs on an internal clock known as your circadian rhythm. When you mess up this internal clock, your cells are exposed to an unusual amount of stress. Many of the health conditions attributed to the biannual time change are because these internal clocks are not easily reprogrammed and are synchronized to a 24-hour cycle of light and dark.²¹

Another system in the body responsible for regulating your internal clock is located in the hypothalamus and called the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN).²² It functions through hormonal and chemical signals to synchronize your internal clock, which in turn regulates your sleep-wake cycle and has an effect on the regulation of other physiological activities.

These activities include your core body temperature, neuroendocrine function, memory and psychomotor activity.²³ The SCN is made up of multiple circadian oscillator neurons that function a little like a pacemaker.

Although your body uses several environmental cues to regulate your circadian rhythm, the most important is your exposure to light. Your SCN produces an electrical output using a specific rhythm in response to light.²⁴ Aging and sleep deprivation will have a negative effect on the electrical amplitude of your SCN, which is essential for optimal behavioral and physiological mechanisms.

There's growing evidence suggesting your SCN contributes to cognitive performance and overall health. When there's a negative impact on this 24-hour rhythm it increases your risk for depression, sleep disorders, neurodegenerative disease and cancer.²⁵

Since your SCN responds to light, disruption in light exposure can trigger negative health effects. As the Earth rotates, your body clock adjusts to light changes, including seasonal change.²⁶

However, the sudden adjustments that come with time changes in the spring and fall are what researchers believe triggers the increased incidence of heart attack, stroke, traffic accidents and a higher number of injuries.

Fred Turek from Northwestern University directs the Center for Sleep and Circadian Biology and says this about a one-hour time change twice a year: "You might not think that a one-hour change is a lot. But it turns out that the master clock in our brain is pretty hard-wired."²⁷

Data Don't Support Daylight Saving Time

One of the reasons given for keeping DST, despite strong evidence it has negative health effects, is the potential it may help save energy. However, as this short video demonstrates, while it may have originally reduced energy use in the early 1900s, the cost difference for a single-family in modern times is just $4 each year.

A second argument is that it offers people more sunlight after work to enjoy recreational activities. Theoretically, this may lead to more physical activity and better health. However, a study published in 2014,²⁸ which gathered data from people living in Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Arizona, found it did not make a difference in the amount of time outdoors, but had an effect on the types of activities.

They concluded, "… the potential for DST to serve as a broad-based intervention that encourages greater sports/recreation participation is not supported by this analysis."

Financial losses are also felt in the stock market. An analysis published in the American Economic Review revealed each time the clocks changed there was an impact on the function of the financial markets.²⁹ The scientists believe desynchronized sleep reasonably explained the effect on the market that was different from other Mondays on the two weekends when the time changes.

When a potential $4 savings in energy is compared against the loss of finances, productivity and rising health care costs from injuries and illness, it's apparent moving the clocks in the spring and the fall is not an effective way of managing human and environmental resources.

Experts also disagree about how long it takes your body to recover from the time change. Till Roenneberg is a German chronobiologist who says his studies demonstrate your body's circadian clock never adjusts during DST. In an interview with a reporter from National Geographic, he said:³⁰

"The consequence of that is that the majority of the population has drastically decreased productivity, decreased quality of life, increasing susceptibility to illness, and is just plain tired. Light doesn't do the same things to the body in the morning and the evening. More light in the morning would advance the body clock, and that would be good. But more light in the evening would even further delay the body clock."

Europe Is Ditching DST in 2021

Many Europeans will soon not have to struggle with a biannual time change. March 26, 2019, the European Parliament voted to end DST in 2021.³¹ The Guardian reported that member states will be allowed to "choose whether to remain on 'permanent summer' or 'permanent winter' time under the draft directive."³²

Europeans call DST "summertime" and standard time is "wintertime." This means countries that opted to remain permanently on summertime will make their final adjustments in March 2021. Countries that decide to remain on permanent wintertime will change their clocks for the last time in October 2021.

As more published data establish the negative effects on health, finances and productivity, the tide is beginning to turn in the U.S. with state bills introduced each year that propose changes to DST.³³

Tips to Transition When the Clock 'Falls Back'

Until DST is either repealed or remains in place year-round, you'll have to make changes to your sleep schedule twice a year. In this short video I share several strategies to help you fall asleep and to improve the quality of your sleep.

Small shifts in your circadian timing are happening all year since many ignore their body's internal clock, either by necessity to accommodate their work schedule or by choice.

Pushing the limit of your body clock by getting up early and staying up late may not be worth it when it comes to your long-term health. University of Alabama associate professor Martin Young has suggested several natural strategies to help resync your body after a time change, including:³⁴

• Wake up 30 minutes earlier on Saturday and Sunday, to minimize the impact of getting up earlier on Monday morning
• Go outside in the sunlight in the early morning
• Exercise in the mornings over the weekend, in keeping with your overall level of health and fitness
• Consider setting your clock ahead on Friday evening, allowing an extra day to adjust over the weekend

I would also add to these recommendations the suggestions from the video above and the following:

• Practice good sleep hygiene, including sleeping in complete darkness, checking your bedroom for electromagnetic fields and keeping your bedroom temperature cool enough for optimal sleep. For a full report about how to maximize the quality of your sleep, see "Sleep — Why You Need It and 50 Ways to Improve It."
• Optimize your vitamin D level to support your immune function, which is especially important during cold and flu season.
• Manage your stress with whatever stress-busting techniques work for you. Consider using yoga, exercise, meditation or Emotional Freedom Techniques.
• Eat dinner earlier and pay attention to your diet, making sure you are consuming plenty of fresh, whole foods, preferably organic, and minimal amounts of processed foods and fast foods; keep your sugar consumption low, especially fructose. I invite you to review our optimized nutrition plan to help you develop an eating plan that supports your overall health.
• Consider encouraging your legislature to change DST by signing a petition to your congresspersons or getting involved in your state to pass a resolution.

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Examining data from the first six weeks of their landmark DETECT study, scientists see encouraging signs that wearable fitness devices can improve public health efforts to control COVID-19.

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New research shows that the spike proteins that extrude from SARS-CoV-2 promote inflammatory responses on the endothelial cells that form the blood-brain barrier. The study shows that SARS-CoV-2 spike proteins can cause this barrier to become 'leaky,' potentially disrupting the delicate neural networks within the brain.

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A new study suggests myocarditis caused by COVID-19 may be a relatively rare occurrence.

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Researchers have created a new model of how the coronavirus can spread through a community. The model factors in network exposure -- whom one interacts with -- and demographics to simulate at a more detailed level both where and how quickly the coronavirus could spread through Seattle and 18 other major cities.

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Dopamine can trigger feelings of happiness in humans. Water fleas that are exposed to dopamine-regulating substances apparently gain several advantages.

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Grocery store employees are likely to be at heightened risk of COVID-19 infection, with those in customer-facing roles 5 times as likely to test positive as their colleagues in other positions, a new study suggests.

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Intermittent fasting (IF) is an approach to eating based on timing. The idea is that fasting for long enough allows insulin levels to fall low enough that our body will use fat for fuel. Growing evidence in animals and humans shows that this approach leads to significant weight loss. When combined with a nutritious, plant-based diet and regular physical activity, IF can be part of a healthy weight loss or maintenance plan, as I described in an earlier blog post.

Now, a randomized controlled trial published in JAMA claims that IF has no significant weight loss benefit and a substantial negative effect on muscle mass. News outlets picked up the story and ran headlines like A Potential Downside of Intermittent Fasting and An Unintended Side Effect of Intermittent Fasting.

But what did this study actually look at and find?

In the study, 141 patients were randomly assigned to 12 weeks of either a time-restricted eating plan (TRE) that involved fasting for 16 hours and eating only during an eight-hour window of the day, or a consistent meal timing (CMT) eating plan, with three structured meals a day plus snacks.

Neither group received any nutrition education or behavioral counseling, nor was physical activity recommended. There was no true control group (meaning a group that did not receive any instructions about meal timing).

Interestingly, both groups lost weight. Given the headlines, I had to read and reread the results several times, because they show that the IF group lost a statistically significant amount of weight from beginning to end — which wasn’t true in the CMT group. The researchers reported: “There was a significant decrease in weight in the TRE group (−0.94 kg; 95% CI, −1.68 kg to −0.20 kg; P = .01) and a nonsignificant decrease in weight in the CMT group (−0.68 kg; 95% CI, −1.41 kg to 0.05 kg; P = .07).”

Translated into plain English, the IF group lost more weight than could be due to chance: between half a pound and 4 pounds, or an average of 2 pounds. The structured meals group also lost some weight, although the amounts lost could have been due to chance: between 0.1 and 3 pounds, or an average of 1.5 pounds. The upshot was that there wasn’t a significant difference in weight change between the two groups. And the researchers saw a loss of muscle mass in the IF group that didn’t occur in the CMT group.

Diving deeper into the study

By the way, all of these folks may have been eating fried or fast foods, and sugary sodas and candy — we don’t know. The study doesn’t mention quality of diet or physical activity. This isn’t how IF is supposed to be done! And yet the IF folks still lost between half a pound and 4 pounds.

Importantly, the structured meals group also lost weight. While not significant enough to prove it was due to this intervention, for some participants it was enough to make structured meal weight loss differ little from IF weight loss. But think about it: structured meals are an intervention. After all, some people eat more than three times a day, consuming multiple small meals throughout the day. Telling people to limit their eating to three mealtimes plus snacks may actually be helping some to eat less.

The authors very well could have concluded that IF was indeed successful. They might also call for a follow-up study with a true no-intervention control group, as well as behavioral counseling, guidance on a healthy diet, and recommended activity levels for IF and CMT groups.

Does additional support make a difference?

Prior studies of IF that have provided behavioral counseling, and guidance on nutrition and activity, have definitely shown positive results. For example, in a previous blog post I described a 2020 American Journal of Clinical Nutrition study in which 250 overweight or obese adults followed one of three diets for 12 months:

• IF on the 5:2 protocol, which means drastically reducing food intake for any two of five days of the week (down to 500 calories for women and 700 calories for men)
• Mediterranean, which emphasized fruits and vegetables, legumes, nuts, seeds, whole grains, and olive oil with moderate fish, chicken, eggs, and dairy, and with an allowance of one glass of wine per day for women and two per day for men
• Paleo, which emphasized fruits and vegetables, animal proteins, coconut products, butter, and olive oil, along with some nuts, seeds, and legumes.
• And this is key: all participants were provided education on behavioral strategies for weight loss, stress management, sleep, and exercise.

Everyone lost weight. The IF group lost more than anyone with an average of 8.8 pounds, Mediterranean next at 6.2 pounds, and Paleo last at 4 pounds. Adherence was better with the Mediterranean diet (57%) and IF (54%) than with the Paleo diet (35%), and better adherence resulted in one to three pounds more weight loss. The Mediterranean and IF groups also saw significant drops in blood pressure, another good result.

What about the loss in muscle mass that occurred in the IF group in the JAMA study? While this needs to be studied further, it’s important to note that other research on IF that included guidance on physical activity did not show any loss of muscle mass.

The bottom line

What’s the takeaway here? A high-quality diet and plenty of physical activity — including resistance training — are critical for our good health, and nothing replaces these recommendations. IF is merely a tool, an approach that can be quite effective for weight loss for some folks. While this one negative study adds to the body of literature on IF, it doesn’t reverse it. We simply need more high-quality studies in order to have a better understanding of how to most effectively incorporate IF into a healthy lifestyle.

The post Intermittent fasting: Does a new study show downsides — or not? appeared first on Harvard Health Blog.

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Grocery store employees are likely to be at heightened risk of COVID-19 infection, with those in customer-facing roles 5 times as likely to test positive as their colleagues in other positions, a new study suggests.

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As progress in traditional computing slows, new forms of computing are coming to the forefront. A team of engineers is attempting to pioneer a type of computing that mimics the efficiency of the brain's neural networks while exploiting the brain's analog nature.

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Technological innovations are rapidly changing how we consume goods and services. In many domains, we are trading ownership of private material goods for access to use shared and experiential goods and services. This article outlines how the downstream effects of these consumption changes are channeled through their influence on psychological ownership -- the feeling that a thing is MINE.

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This likely isn’t the first time you’ve been advised to eat your vegetables, but I’m going to add a new declaration: Eat your vegetables, especially the ones you may not particularly like.

If you’re not a vegetable eater, you technically may get your two to three servings per day by fitting in things like potatoes, carrots and corn (which isn’t actually a vegetable, by the way). But while those may be some of your most favorite veggies,¹ they’re not the most nutritious options even though they do have some health benefits.

Cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli and Brussels sprouts (one of America’s most hated vegetables), have a lot more to offer, including protection for your heart.

In a recent study published in the British Journal of Nutrition,² researchers looked at data from 684 older Western Australian women and found that those who ate more cruciferous vegetables had a lower risk of extensive calcium buildup in their aortas, the main artery that carries blood away from the heart.

The women in the study who ate more than 45 grams of cruciferous vegetables every day, such as a quarter cup of cooked broccoli or half a cup of raw cabbage, for example, were 46% less likely to have calcium buildup in their aortas compared to women who ate little to no cruciferous vegetables.

This is significant because calcium buildup is one of the key markers for atherosclerosis and structural blood vessel disease. When calcium builds up in the arteries, it “hardens” the arteries, hinders blood flow and reduces the amount of blood that circulates around the body. This series of physiological changes is conventionally thought to be a primary underlying cause of heart attack or stroke.³

On a side note, there are other working theories, however, that discount and refute the blocked artery notion. In his 2004 book, “The Etiopathogenesis of Coronary Heart Disease,”⁴ the late Dr. Giorgio Baroldi wrote that the largest study done on heart attack incidence revealed only 41% of people who have a heart attack actually have a blocked artery.

And, of those, 50% of the blockages occur after the heart attack, not prior to it. This means at least 80% of heart attacks are not associated with blocked arteries at all.

According to Dr. Thomas Cowan, a practicing physician, founding board member of the Weston A. Price Foundation and author of “Human Heart, Cosmic Heart,” three of the core, underlying issues that cause heart attacks are decreased parasympathetic tone followed by sympathetic nervous system activation, collateral circulation failure (lack of microcirculation to the heart) and lactic acid buildup in the heart muscle due to impaired mitochondrial function.

You can learn more about Cowan and his thoughts on this in “A New Way of Looking at Heart Disease and Novel Treatment Options.”

Cruciferous Vegetables Help Keep Your Heart Healthy

Heart disease is the leading cause of death for men and women of all racial and ethnical groups in the U.S., killing one person every 37 seconds.⁵ Aside from all of the deaths attributed to heart disease, another 12.1% of Americans are living with some type of chronic heart condition.⁶

You may think that a lot of this comes down to your genetics, but while you may be predisposed to certain conditions, the study confirms that the development of heart disease largely has to do with your diet. This study is groundbreaking because it shows an actual mechanism for how cruciferous vegetables help prevent heart disease.

Lauren Blekkenhorst, Ph.D., one of the lead researchers on the study, explains that the high content of vitamin K in cruciferous vegetables helps inhibit calcification in the blood vessels.⁷ But there are other nutritional compounds that have a positive effect on your heart too.

One of the most notable is sulforaphane, an isothiocyanate compound that gives cruciferous vegetables their signature odor. If you’ve ever cooked broccoli or Brussels sprouts, you know that smell I’m referring to. While these compounds can certainly clear a room, they are just as powerful when it comes to your health.

Other than sulforaphane, the nutrients in cruciferous vegetables that have a positive effect on your heart health include:⁸

• Selenium
• Flavonoids
• Anthocyanins
• Polyphenols
• Antioxidant enzymes

Cruciferous Vegetables Can Help Prevent Cancer

Cruciferous vegetables are also rich in sulfur-containing compounds called glucosinolates. When you chew or chop cruciferous vegetables, the glucosinolates come into contact with plant enzymes that speed up their breakdown and produce secondary compounds that help prevent cancer.⁹

These compounds help eliminate carcinogens from your body so they don’t cause DNA damage that can result in cancer. They also prevent normal cells from developing into cancerous cells.

Several studies have also confirmed that the isothiocyanates in cruciferous vegetables, including sulforaphane, have distinct anti-cancer activity. The isothiocyanates spark hundreds of genetic changes, activating some genes that fight cancer and switch off others that fuel tumors.

In one study, sulforaphane was shown to reduce the incidence and rate of chemically induced mammary tumors in animals. It also inhibited the growth of cultured human breast cancer cells, leading to cell death.¹⁰ Lead author of the study, Olga Azarenko, said:¹¹

“Breast cancer, the second leading cause of cancer deaths in women, can be protected against by eating cruciferous vegetables such as cabbage and near relatives of cabbage such as broccoli and cauliflower.”

According to Azarenko, sulforaphane works in a similar fashion to the anticancer drugs taxol and vincristine, but without the toxic side effects. Other studies have confirmed the protective benefits of these vegetables for other types of cancer as well, such as:

• Bladder cancer — Researchers found that the higher the intake of cruciferous vegetables, the lower the risk of bladder cancer¹²
• Lung cancer — Researchers found that smokers with a high intake of cruciferous vegetables had a lower risk of developing lung cancer¹³
• Prostate cancer — This study, published in PLOS ONE in 2008, discovered that just a few additional portions of broccoli each week could protect men from prostate cancer¹⁴
• Colon cancer — A review of epidemiological studies found a significant inverse relationship between intake of cruciferous vegetables and colon cancer risk.¹⁵ In other words, prospective studies show that eating a diet rich in cruciferous vegetables helps prevent the development of colon cancer

Other Health Benefits of Cruciferous Vegetables

While heart disease and cancer prevention are big benefits of cruciferous vegetables, they have a lot more to offer too. Studies show that eating cruciferous vegetables can also:¹⁶

Prevent metabolic disorders and reduce the risk of Type 2 diabetes	Help control weight and reduce your risk of obesity
Prevent respiratory complications from human papilloma virus (HPV)	Reduce and prevent inflammation associated with respiratory disorders
Prevent oxidative stress, which can reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease	Slow down cognitive decline in older age
Exhibit antimicrobial effects against pathogenic bacteria like Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Enterobacter aerogenes, Salmonella serovar typhimurium, Escherichia coli and Shigella sonnei	Prevent asthma
Help boost your body’s natural detoxification pathways

What Are Cruciferous Vegetables?

I’ve already mentioned broccoli, Brussels sprouts and cabbage, some of the most common cruciferous vegetables, but there are others too. The cruciferous vegetables, and vegetables that belong to the cruciferous family, include:¹⁷

Cauliflower	Collard greens
Kale	Kohlrabi
Mustard greens	Rutabaga
Turnips	Bok choy
Chinese cabbage	Arugula
Horseradish	Radish
Wasabi	Watercress

How Many Cruciferous Vegetables Should You Eat?

It’s currently recommended that adults eat between 2.5 and 3.5 cups of vegetables per day,¹⁸ which equals about three to seven servings. There currently is no USDA recommendation for cruciferous vegetables specifically, but adults should have one to three cups of vegetables, including cruciferous, each day, depending on your activity level.¹⁹

The way that cruciferous vegetables such as Brussels sprouts are prepared matters too. A 2011 study showed that not only can Brussels sprouts produce enzymes to detoxify your body from cancer-inducing properties but steaming them also brings out the best combination of benefits.²⁰

Boiling, on the other hand, destroys the metabolic processes that release myrosinase and activate glucosinolates, which together generate metabolites.²¹ And, should you decide to eat them raw, then just the act of chewing can activate those glucosinolates, too.²²

At some point, you may have heard that cruciferous vegetables can negatively affect thyroid health or even cause thyroid cancer, rather than prevent it. That’s because the breakdown of glucosinolates can create a compound called goitrin, which can block thyroid hormone production and cause hypothyroidism, or a low functioning thyroid.

The breakdown of glucosinolates also creates compounds that compete with iodine, and inadequate iodine can also lead to hypothyroidism. The cancer concern was raised in a study of Malaysian women who consumed large amounts of cruciferous vegetables.^23,24 The women also had a low iodine intake and mild iodine deficiency, which researchers felt contributed to their cancer.

While this is not something to ignore, it’s important to remember that a balanced diet always works best — in other words, make your cruciferous veggies part of your diet, but not your main part, and you won’t have to worry about negative effects on your thyroid gland.

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Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) since 1984, this year rose to national prominence as the leader of the White House Coronavirus Task Force. By the time everything is said and done, he may end up wishing he’d gained less public exposure.

In the October 19, 2020, report¹ “Dr. Fauci’s COVID-19 Treachery,” Dr. Peter Breggin reveals Fauci’s “chilling ties” to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its military.

A second, legal, report² by Breggin titled “COVID-19 & Public Health Totalitarianism: Untoward Effects on Individuals, Institutions and Society,” was filed in a federal court in Ohio, August 31, 2020, as part of a lawsuit and injunction to put an end to the state’s pandemic measures.

According to Breggin, Fauci “has been the major force” behind research activities that enabled the CCP to manufacture lethal SARS coronaviruses, which in turn led to the release — whether accidental or not — of SARS-CoV-2 from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in Wuhan, China.

Breggin claims Fauci has helped the CCP obtain “valuable U.S. patents,” and that he, in collaboration with the CCP and the World Health Organization, initially suppressed the truth about the origins and dangers of the pandemic, thereby enabling the spread of the virus from China to the rest of the world.

Fauci has, and continues to, shield the CCP and himself, Breggin says, by “denying the origin of SARS-CoV-2” and “delaying and thwarting worldwide attempts to deal rationally with the pandemic.”

Gain-of-Function Research Supported by Fauci

In the executive summary of the report, Breggin documents 15 questionable activities that Fauci has been engaged in, starting with the fact that he funded dangerous gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses, both by individual Chinese researchers and the WIV in collaboration with American researchers. This research, Breggin says, allowed the CCP and its military to create their own bioweapons, including SARS-CoV-2.

He points out that the American-Chinese collaboration was initially detailed in a paper written by two Chinese researchers, Botao Xiao (trained at Northwestern University and Harvard Medical School) and Lei Xiao back in February 2020. According to Breggin, the CCP forced them to recant and the paper was withdrawn.

“The stated purpose [of gain-of-function research] is to learn to prevent and treat future outbreaks; but research labs are the most common source of outbreaks from dangerous pathogens, including SARS-CoV-2, as well as two earlier accidental escapes by SARS viruses in 2004 from a research facility in Beijing,” Breggin writes.³

As previously reported by Newsweek,⁴ the NIAID-funded gain-of-function research into bat coronaviruses was conducted in two parts. The first, which began in 2014 and ended in 2019,⁵ focused on “understanding the risk of bat coronavirus emergence.” Initial findings⁶ were published in Nature Medicine in 2015.

The program, which had a budget of $3.7 million, was led by Wuhan virologist Shi Zheng-Li and sought to catalogue wild bat coronaviruses. It also involved U.S. scientists such as Ralph Barric from the University of North Carolina and Charles Lieber from Harvard.⁷

The second phase that began in 2019 included additional surveillance of coronaviruses along with gain-of-function research to investigate how bat coronaviruses might mutate to affect humans. This second phase was run by the EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit research group led by Peter Daszak, an expert on disease ecology. According to Newsweek, the project proposal explained the research to be conducted as follows:⁸

“’We will use S protein sequence data, infectious clone technology, in vitro and in vivo infection experiments and analysis of receptor binding to test the hypothesis that % divergence thresholds in S protein sequences predict spillover potential.’

In layman's terms, ‘spillover potential’ refers to the ability of a virus to jump from animals to humans, which requires that the virus be able to attach to receptors in the cells of humans. SARS-CoV-2, for instance, is adept at binding to the ACE2 receptor in human lungs and other organs.

According to Richard Ebright, an infectious disease expert at Rutgers University, the project description refers to experiments that would enhance the ability of bat coronavirus to infect human cells and laboratory animals using techniques of genetic engineering. In the wake of the pandemic, that is a noteworthy detail.”

Why Did Fauci Continue Gain-of-Function Research?

While President Trump canceled funding for dangerous gain-of-function research on viruses in April 2020 after the Chinese-American collaborations became publicly known, Fauci has since “unleashed a deluge of new funding that will almost certainly” benefit Chinese scientists with CCP ties who are still working in various U.S. universities and other research facilities.

Part of the funding is again directed to the EcoHealth Alliance, which for years has outsourced its research projects to WIV and other Chinese researchers. That said, recent reports indicate the NIH is now demanding the organization produce records detailing its work with the Wuhan lab before the funding is released.⁹

Fauci also continued outsourcing gain-of-function research to the WIV back in 2014, after then-President Obama ordered a stop to such research. At the time, he also continued to fund collaborations between U.S. and WIV researchers, led by Vineet Menachery, Ph.D., at the University of North Carolina.

“In order to outsource dangerous viral research from the U.S. to China during the Obama moratorium, Fauci prematurely approved the Wuhan Institute as a highest level containment facility (known as BSL-4) capable of safely working with lethal viruses,” Breggin writes.¹⁰

“He did this while knowing the Institute had a very poor safety record and while also knowing that all such facilities in China are overseen by the military as part of its biowarfare program. Thus, Fauci created two grave worldwide threats, the accidental release of a deadly coronavirus and/or its use as a military weapon.”

Interestingly, while the original moratorium on gain-of-function research was a direct order by the President, when the moratorium was lifted at the end of 2017, it was done so by the National Institutes of Health and the NIAID.

Fauci also defended and promoted gain-of-function research on bird flu viruses a decade ago, saying such research was worth the risk because it allows scientists to prepare for pandemics.¹¹ However, as noted by Breggin, this kind of research does not appear to have improved governments’ pandemic responses one whit.

Downplaying COVID-19 Risks

Next, Breggin points out Fauci’s connections to and support of Director-General of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, a member of a Marxist-Leninist Ethiopian political party whose corrupt past and terrorist ties have been highlighted ever since his controversial nomination.^12,13,14 Incidentally, Tedros has also been accused of covering up cholera outbreaks in Ethiopia.

“Together, they initially minimized the dangers of COVID-19. Fauci and Tedros also delayed worldwide preparations for the pandemic while allowing the Chinese to spread the virus with thousands of international passenger flights,” Breggin writes, adding:

“Fauci publicly undermined the President’s criticism of Director-General Tedros and China. Instead, Fauci reassured the world that Tedros was a trustworthy and ‘outstanding’ man — implying that Tedros’s connections in China were similarly reliable and could be trusted.”

Fauci’s Globalist Ties

Interestingly, Fauci recently published a paper in which he again dismisses the possibility that SARS-CoV-2 was created in and released from the WIV, arguing instead for a natural mutation.

“By persistently and unequivocally claiming that SARS-CoV-2 emerged from nature untouched by lab manipulations, Fauci continues to protect himself and China, and their relationship, to the endangerment of America and the rest of the world,” Breggin writes.

“Fauci holds himself out as the ultimate source of objective scientific information and science-based conclusions. In reality, he works with and empowers globalist pharmaceutical firms and globalist organizations such as WHO and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation … These globalists gained power and influence as their policies and practices, including the shutdowns, continue to worsen conditions throughout the world.”

The globalist, technocratic agenda also shines through Fauci’s call for a political agenda that protects the population from pathogens by limiting or eliminating “aggressive” and manmade interventions into nature. Fauci’s paper, published in the journal Cell in September 2020, reads in part:¹⁵

“The COVID-19 pandemic is yet another reminder … that in a human-dominated world, in which our human activities represent aggressive, damaging, and unbalanced interactions with nature, we will increasingly provoke new disease emergences.

We remain at risk for the foreseeable future. COVID-19 is among the most vivid wake-up calls in over a century. It should force us to begin to think in earnest and collectively about living in more thoughtful and creative harmony with nature …”

Indeed, this language is straight out of the technocratic handbook, now rebranded as “the Great Reset.” As noted by Breggin:

“Fauci’s utopian scheme, which overlaps with the Green New Deal, would permanently suppress and disrupt the activities and lives of the 7.8 billion people on Earth in the vain hope of reducing future pandemics.

Thus the American official most responsible for the creation of SARS-CoV-2 in a Chinese lab instead blames its origins on human interventions into the environment and nature, thereby completely exonerating himself while holding humanity responsible.

Simultaneously, he is using the pretext of protecting us from viruses to impose a radical totalitarian agenda upon humanity. Indeed, the largest, most aggressive, and most dangerous human interventions into nature must include Fauci-funded gain-of-function research in which viruses are taken out of nature and engineered into pathogens.”

Fauci Continues to Hype COVID-19 Risks

In the main body of the report (Page 7 onward), Breggin goes on to detail Fauci’s role in the media fearmongering that has allowed pandemic measures to stretch from an initial call for a two-week lockdown to eight months and counting. “Most people have very unrealistic fears about the risk of dying from COVID-19,” Breggin notes, and “This is due in part to the CDC and to Dr. Anthony Fauci who inflate the risk of COVID-19 deaths.”

According to data¹⁶ released by the CDC August 26, 2020, only 6% of the total COVID-19-related deaths in the U.S. had COVID-19 listed as the sole cause of death on the death certificate. The remaining 94% had an average of 2.6 health conditions that contributed to their deaths.

“Most people who die while being positive for SARS-CoV-2 are near to or past their average longevity. In addition to being old, the great majority are already ill with heart disease, cancer, or some other chronic illnesses that may in fact have caused them to die.

But even using the CDC’s biased data, the risk of death for most people is too small to require them to sacrifice the quality of their lives as the government demands under the threat of catching COVID-19,” Breggin writes.

COVID-19 Is Less Lethal Than the Flu for Most

According to a September 2, 2020, article¹⁷ in Annals of Internal Medicine, the infection fatality ratio has been overestimated due to the fact that many who test positive for SARS-CoV-2 remain asymptomatic, which makes it difficult to estimate the true infection rate.

The researchers found that, when excluding those residing in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, the infection fatality rate for the average person is as follows:

• Overall (all ages) — 0.26%
• People younger than 40 — 0.01%
• People aged 60 or older — 1.71%

The estimated infection fatality rate for seasonal influenza listed in this paper is 0.8%. Other sources put it a little higher. In either case, this means that if you’re under the age of 60, your chance of dying from the flu is greater than your chance of dying from COVID-19.

Breggin cites CDC data, noting that the CDC is using inflated numbers, but even at that, the risk of death for people under the age of 70 is lower than that of the flu. According to CDC estimates, the infection fatality ratios are as follows:¹⁸

• 0-19 years — 0.003% (3 in 100,000)
• 20-49 years — 0.02%
• 50-69 years — 0.5%
• 70+ years — 5%

As noted by Breggin, the risk to children and youths is exceedingly small, “Yet Dr. Fauci and other public health officials continue to act as if there is a grave risk of exposing children and young adults to SARS-CoV-2, when there is not,” Breggin writes.

Breggin’s 55-page report¹⁹ is well worth reading in its entirety. It contains far more details than I’ve been able to provide in this overview, and is fully referenced.

Fauci Continues to Dismiss Hydroxychloroquine

Breggin’s legal report,²⁰ “COVID-19 & Public Health Totalitarianism: Untoward Effects on Individuals, Institutions and Society,” is also worth reading. It addresses the totalitarian threat posed by the global response to the pandemic, and details the psychological operations behind the fearmongering and the underhanded methods used to discredit hydroxychloroquine, among other things.

Included is an open letter to Fauci about his dismissal of hydroxychloroquine, signed by Drs. George C. Fareed, Michael M. Jacobs and Donald C. Pompan, which reads, in part:²¹

“Dear Dr. Fauci:

You were placed into the most high-profile role regarding America’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. Americans have relied on your medical expertise concerning the wearing of masks, resuming employment, returning to school, and of course medical treatment.

You are largely unchallenged in terms of your medical opinions … This is unusual in the medical profession in which doctors’ opinions are challenged by other physicians in the form of exchanges between doctors at hospitals, medical conferences, as well as debate in medical journals.

You render your opinions unchallenged, without formal public opposition from physicians who passionately disagree with you. It is incontestable that the public is best served when opinions and policy are based on the prevailing evidence and science, and able to withstand the scrutiny of medical professionals.

As experience accrued in treating COVID-19 infections, physicians worldwide discovered that high-risk patients can be treated successfully as an outpatient, within the first five to seven days of the onset of symptoms, with a ‘cocktail’ consisting of hydroxychloroquine, zinc, and azithromycin (or doxycycline). Multiple scholarly contributions to the literature detail the efficacy of the hydroxychloroquine-based combination treatment.

Dr. Harvey Risch, the renowned Yale epidemiologist, published an article in May 2020 in the American Journal of Epidemiology titled ‘Early Outpatient Treatment of Symptomatic, High-Risk COVID-19 Patients that Should be Ramped-Up Immediately as Key to Pandemic Crisis’ …

Dr. Risch is an expert at evaluating research data and study designs, publishing over 300 articles. Dr. Risch’s assessment is that there is unequivocal evidence for the early and safe use of the ‘HCQ cocktail’ …

Yet, you continue to reject the use of hydroxychloroquine, except in a hospital setting in the form of clinical trials, repeatedly emphasizing the lack of evidence supporting its use. Hydroxychloroquine, despite 65 years of use for malaria, and over 40 years for lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, with a well-established safety profile, has been deemed by you and the FDA as unsafe for use in the treatment of symptomatic COVID-19 infections.

Your opinions have influenced the thinking of physicians and their patients, medical boards, state and federal agencies, pharmacists, hospitals, and just about everyone involved in medical decision making.

Indeed, your opinions impacted the health of Americans, and many aspects of our day-to-day lives including employment and school. Those of us who prescribe hydroxychloroquine, zinc, and azithromycin/doxycycline believe fervently that early outpatient use would save tens of thousands of lives and enable our country to dramatically alter the response to COVID-19.

We advocate for an approach that will reduce fear and allow Americans to get their lives back. We hope that our questions compel you to reconsider your current approach to COVID-19 infection.”

Fauci — ‘An Extraordinarily Destructive Force’

In Breggin’s estimation, Fauci “has been and continues to be an extraordinarily destructive force in the world.” Not only did he play a role in China’s ability to create SARS-CoV-2 and other potential biological weapons, he’s also covering up its origin, and initially tried to downplay the threat of the novel virus.

To top it off, “he became the go-to scientist and management czar for the very pandemic that he helped to create, enormously increasing his power and influence, and the wealth of his institute and his global collaborators, including Bill Gates and the international pharmaceutical industry,” Breggin writes, adding, in conclusion:

“In his rise to power, Fauci has done a great deal of additional damage … for example, by suppressing the most effective, safest, and least expensive medication treatment (hydroxychloroquine in varied combinations), while manipulating his clinical research to promote an ineffective, dangerous, and highly expensive drug (remdesivir).

Fauci has also been supporting inflated COVID-19 case counts and reported deaths from the CDC, then using the inflated estimates to justify oppressive public health measures that have no precedent and little or no scientific basis, but add to his influence and power and to the wealth of his globalist associates …

It is time to fire Fauci, to investigate this entire disaster, and to consider what needs to be done to protect the US and the world from future lab-generated pandemic disasters, whether accidental or intentional.”

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When Jayden called our clinic to talk about worsening migraines, a medication change was one potential outcome. But moments into our telehealth visit, it was clear that a cure for her problems couldn’t be found in a pill. “He’s out of control again,” she whispered, lips pressed to the phone speaker, “What can I do?”

Unfortunately, abusive relationships like Jayden’s are incredibly common. Intimate partner violence (IPV) harms one in four women and one in 10 men in the United States. People sometimes think that abusive relationships only happen between men and women. But this type of violence can occur between people of any gender and sexual orientation.

Experiencing abuse can be extremely isolating, and can make you feel hopeless. But it is possible to live a life free from violence. Support and resources are available to guide you toward safety — and your doctor or health professional may be able to help in ways described below.

What is intimate partner violence?

Intimate partner violence (IPV) isn’t just physical abuse like kicking or choking, though it can include physical harm. IPV is any emotional, psychological, sexual, or physical way your partner may hurt and/or control you. This can include sexual harassment, threats to harm you, stalking, or controlling behaviors such as restricting access to bank accounts, children, friends, or family.

If this sounds like your relationship, consider talking to your doctor or health care professional, or contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-SAFE.

What does a healthy relationship look like?

Media images show us uniformly blissful relationships, but perfect relationships are a myth. This culture can make it difficult for us to recognize unhealthy characteristics in our own relationships. Respect, trust, open communication, and shared decisions are part of a healthy relationship. You should be able to freely participate in leisure activities or see friends without fear of your partner’s reaction. You should be able to share your opinions or make decisions without fear of retaliation or abuse. Sexual and physical intimacy should include consent — meaning that no one uses force or guilt to compel you to do things that hurt you or make you feel uncomfortable.

How can a health professional help me?

Health professionals like doctors or nurses can take a history and assess how the abuse may be affecting your health, well-being, and safety. Trauma from IPV can cause visible symptoms, like bruises or scars, as well as more subtle symptoms, like abdominal pain, headaches, trouble sleeping, or symptoms of traumatic brain injury. Health professionals can also provide referrals to see specialists, if needed.

With your consent, health professionals can take a detailed history, examine you, and document the exam findings in your confidential medical record. Let them know if you are concerned that your partner will view your medical record, so measures can be taken to keep it confidential. This documentation can help to strengthen a court case if you decide to pursue legal action in the future.

Additionally, you may be at risk for pregnancy or certain sexually transmitted infections (STIs). A health professional can perform tests for STIs or pregnancy and offer birth control options. Some forms of birth control are less easily detected by your partner, like an IUD, or a contraceptive implant or injection.

Health professionals can help you develop a safety plan if you feel unsafe. They can also help connect you with social services, legal services, and specially trained advocates. If you would like, health professionals can also connect you with law enforcement to file a report.

What is a sexual assault exam?

If you have experienced sexual assault within 120 hours (five days), you may be offered a sexual assault medical examination. This exam is voluntary. It is performed by a trained health professional and may include a full body exam, including your vagina, penis, or anus. It may also include taking blood, urine, or body surface samples and/or photographs that could be used during an investigation or legal action. You may be prescribed medication that could prevent infections or a pregnancy. You can click here to learn more about the sexual assault exam.

What can I expect if I talk to a health care professional about IPV?

Health professionals should listen to you supportively and without judgement. While not all health professionals are trained in trauma-informed care, it is your right to be treated with respect and empathy to help you feel safe and empowered. You should not be pressured to do anything you don’t want to do. And this shouldn’t change the care you receive. You have the right to decline any care you are not comfortable with. You get to decide how you want to proceed after you share information with your healthcare professional, whether that means seeking out legal support, making a safety plan to leave the relationship, or choosing to stay in the relationship and be connected to ongoing support. And you can choose not to share information about abuse at all.

Will the conversation be private and confidential?

These discussions should occur with you and your health professional in a private space. If your abusive partner accompanies you to your appointment, your health professional may ask them to leave the examination room for a period of time so that you have the privacy to talk openly. You can also ask to speak with the health professional alone.

In most cases, discussing your experiences with your health professional is confidential under HIPAA. All states have laws that protect children, elders and people with disabilities from abuse of any kind. Your health professional is obligated in certain circumstances to report abuse, such as violence against a minor or vulnerable adult. However, only a few states require health professionals to report intimate partner abuse.

Where can I find more resources on IPV?

Want to learn more about IPV and how to seek help?

If you or someone you know you is at risk, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-SAFE (7233) or 800-787-3224. This hotline is for anyone, regardless of race, sex, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, or ability.

If you are unable to speak safely, you can visit thehotline.org or text LOVEIS to 22522. They are available 24/7 by phone or with a live chat, and can work with you to find help in your area.

• RAINN (national resource for sexual assault and violence)
• Love Is Respect (national resource for dating violence)
• WomensLaw.org (legal information for women experiencing domestic violence)
• LGBT National Help Center (LGBTQ+ resources, including chat and peer counseling).

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