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Capitalism at work...
Mar. 26th, 2007 01:45 pmItem #1: “Drugs for ‘Good’ Cholesterol Fail Tests”. From the article (edited for brevity): “[D]octors have been trying to boost HDL, or good cholesterol... to further lower risk. An extended-release niacin drug called Niaspan, sold by Kos Pharmaceuticals Inc., does this. But it can cause a prickly hot sensation called flushing that some people find intolerable. Pfizer,Merck & Co. and Swiss drug maker Roche Holding AG are testing drugs that boost HDL in a novel way. On Monday, scientists reported the results of several studies on torcetrapib. In one, the drug boosted HDL by 61 percent, but trends in death, hospitalization and heart attacks "are all going in the wrong direction," Nissen said.”
So, freely available and cheap over the counter Niacin in bulk doses: works. Expensive (and lest we forget, highly profitable!) Big Pharma products: worse for you than doing nothing. I’ll happily trade a little hot prickly sensation (which lasts 5 whole minutes a day, Jesus people grow a pair) for an extra decade or two of heart-healthy living. Why is this difficult for people?
Item #2: the pet food thing. It comes down to this: the cause is rat poison, a variety banned in the U.S. -- do you realize how hard it is to get something banned in the U.S.?-- is found in the wheat gluten in a dozen pet food brands, leading to pet trauma and death and a giant recall and just you wait, a humongous class action lawsuit. What I haven’t seen in any of the commentary so far is, HELLO? CATS AND DOGS DO NOT, under any normal evolutionary or historical circumstance, EAT WHEAT. They are carnivores and can survive in the wild eating nothing but meat. Hot, fresh-killed meat, and a bit of water. The only rationale for the presence of wheat gluten in cat food in the first place is...wait for it...it improves the profits.
Feh.
So, freely available and cheap over the counter Niacin in bulk doses: works. Expensive (and lest we forget, highly profitable!) Big Pharma products: worse for you than doing nothing. I’ll happily trade a little hot prickly sensation (which lasts 5 whole minutes a day, Jesus people grow a pair) for an extra decade or two of heart-healthy living. Why is this difficult for people?
Item #2: the pet food thing. It comes down to this: the cause is rat poison, a variety banned in the U.S. -- do you realize how hard it is to get something banned in the U.S.?-- is found in the wheat gluten in a dozen pet food brands, leading to pet trauma and death and a giant recall and just you wait, a humongous class action lawsuit. What I haven’t seen in any of the commentary so far is, HELLO? CATS AND DOGS DO NOT, under any normal evolutionary or historical circumstance, EAT WHEAT. They are carnivores and can survive in the wild eating nothing but meat. Hot, fresh-killed meat, and a bit of water. The only rationale for the presence of wheat gluten in cat food in the first place is...wait for it...it improves the profits.
Feh.
