The pressure on the NHS and social care has reached breaking point. If the burden of disease is not reduced in the next few years, then the NHS will fail together with the Government that is in power at the time.
The U.K. is an affluent country and our health, as indicated by falling age specific mortality rates, has improved over the last hundred years. We are living longer but the proportion of time we spend with ill health appears to be rising. Too many have chronic diseases that prevent them from continuing employment in their 50s and 60s. In addition, disease in the young is on the increase.
Increasing longevity is indicative of the health of the elderly, of those born between the 1920s and the 1950s. They appear to be doing relatively well. But those born since the 1960s are getting progressively less well. There has been an increase in diseases which were uncommon in the 1950s. These include asthma, eczema, hay fever, autism, type 1 diabetes mellitus, acne, anorexia nervosa, chronic fatigue syndrome, irritable bowel syndrome, anxiety neurosis, autoimmune disease, falling sperm count, inflammatory bowel disease, cancer in the under-50s and obesity and type 2 diabetes mellitus.
What the medical profession must do is identify the cause, or causes, of this deterioration in health. What the Government must do is invest in primary prevention to reduce the burden of disease. There is, however, a problem. While those Left of centre in the political spectrum are keen to intervene in the lifestyle and diet of the population, and are happy to tax and ban, those on the Right are not.
I think this problem stems from the oldest idea in medicine, which is best expressed as a haiku:
Sin causes disease,
Piety for prevention,
Penance is the cure.
Nobody, Left or Right, would support this concept explicitly; but it is planted in the sub-conscious of us all and always emerges when disease is discussed. Surely obesity is due to too much food and too little exercise, isn’t that gluttony and sloth? Avoiding obesity means a life of self-denial. Treating obesity requires punishing diets and exercise. Sin also means that somebody, or some organisation is to blame. When it comes to prevention, we have this uneasy feeling that the things we enjoy will be bad for us and we will have to give them up. Only the things we dislike will emerge as healthy. Prevention based on these principles will only appeal to puritans.
Well, I can state with confidence that sin is not the cause of disease, and piety and penance have no role in prevention; indeed, the opposite. Our ancestors have all, every one, negotiated the treacherous journey from birth to reproduction maintaining their health on the way. Evolution ensures that we will seek and enjoy those actions which are healthy and avoid those that are not; and our instincts are the guide. So do not deny yourself that second glass of wine or turn January dry.
The U.K. bio-bank is a treasure trove of information. Hundreds of thousands of citizens have given tissue samples and information to epidemiologists. A recent publication from the bio-bank identified seven lifestyle factors that are associated with good mental health. These are never smoke, moderate alcohol consumption, a good night’s sleep, exercise, not sedentary, social contact and a healthy diet. These are associations; if your lifestyle fits with these seven factors then you will have low levels of inflammation and you will tend to be healthy. Low levels of inflammation also mean a reduced likelihood of neurodegeneration (senile dementia), atherosclerosis (strokes and heart disease) and cancer. The only surprise in the lifestyle factors, perhaps, is that it is moderate alcohol consumption that is associated with good health; but that fits with our instincts. Healthy people like to exercise, not a punishing schedule, but a walk in the countryside. They like to socialise, we all crave a good night’s sleep, and it’s only those who are ill who prefer to be sedentary. We all know that smoking is bad for you and so is pollution.
There is even a great deal of agreement on a healthy diet. We should eat more fruit and vegetables, consume more full cream milk and yogurt, increase white meat relative to red meat, and purchase less calorie dense ultra-processed food. A Mediterranean diet with plenty of milk and yogurt or perhaps a more traditional diet as consumed in the U.K. between 1920 and 1950.
Most of what is stated above is not too contentious apart from increased consumption of full cream milk and yogurt. But, in my opinion, this is the most important point I have to make. It gets rather technical from now on, but hold on it is worth it. Disease in the young and the middle aged is increasing and is caused by inflammation. There are a relatively small number of bacteria (millions not trillions) growing within the superficial tissues of our body. They cause low grade inflammation and contribute, but are not the sole cause, of most disease. These bacteria (the mucosal tissue microbiota) are pathogens (they cause disease). On the surface of our skin, and in the lumina of the multiple ducts within our body there are trillions of bacteria (the mucosal luminal microbiota). They derive their energy from body secretions and form a protective layer that prevents the pathogenic bacteria getting into our tissues. If the composition of the mucosal luminal microbiota (the trillions) is sub-optimal more pathogenic bacteria get into our tissues causing more inflammation and more disease.
Milk has evolved over millions of years in mammals. It contains all the bacteria that are required to line the superficial surfaces of the infant and form an optimal luminal microbiota. But our increasingly affluent and hygienic lifestyle with an increasingly sterile diet means that the optimal luminal microbiota cannot be maintained. We need to drink cow’s milk and eat yogurt after weaning.
In the 1960s the medical profession decided that cow’s milk was bad. They thought it contained too much saturated fat and was contributing to heart disease. They overturned several thousand years of belief that milk was healthy. It was a bad mistake on the part of the medical profession and since the 1960s consumption of liquid milk has fallen and disease in the young has risen.
My concept of primary prevention is not about legislation and taxation. It is advice to the general population about lifestyle and diet which is based on evidence. In my opinion there is evidence to support the statements above but not everyone will agree. Insofar as there is disagreement, then, that is a reason for urgent research to define the role of the mucosal tissue microbiota in disease. The Government must ensure that this research is undertaken.
In the meantime, I will continue to drink at least a pint of full cream milk each day and consume 150gms of yogurt (full fat, live, no added sugar) last thing at night.
Dr. James A. Morris is a retired consultant pathologist.
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“previous waves” – how do we know there were previous waves? April – there was the moving of infectious people out of hospitals into care homes (and the do not resuscitate orders, and the nonsense isolation and distancing which caused horrendous problems in hospitals and care homes). Then autumn/winter – was it much more than seasonal deaths – plus vaccines, depressed immunity as a result of forced isolation of the healthy in the summer months. And as for now – we’re worse off than this time last year (according to official figures) – why should I believe that NPI’s and “vaccinations” have been a good thing? sky-rocketing child hospitalisations in zero Covid New Zealand apparently – these measures come at a price.
It seems to me that we would have had a single wave if lockdown measures hadn’t intervened. The second wave was the continuance of the first, exacerbated, as you say, by winter deaths for all reasons, and mainly misattributed. The third wave is essentially catching up on the young who, in the main, are being detected through mass testing and who would otherwise have put it down to a sniffle.
Why on earth is Piffle continuing with track and trace, and isolation of the healthy? There’s been plenty of time for people to get natural immunity or take those injections if they want them. If not now, then when can this madness end?
Assuming this is a serious question, the answer is that it will go on while Davos imposes the Social Credit Score apps gradually, to allow for scaling up and ironing out teething troubles with obliging every single person to prove our compliance and beg for (revocable) permission every time we travel, recreate, work, transact and interact.
France has jumped the gun a little, but we’ll follow along shortly.
“vicar faces sack for hugging mourner and singing without mask”
My translation – “charity and compassion banned by mad totalitarian government, supported by church hierarchy”.
Makes you wonder if any institution is worth supporting these days. When a community founded on A Jesus who touched lepers and the bleeding treats the mourning as untouchable, the whole institution is rotten and needs a massive overhaul.
This isn’t remotely surprising – the CofE is an extremely unpleasant organisation with policies so vague as to let the leadership do pretty much what they want. This might not even be about the issue claimed anyway (which is utterly petty and ridiculous) – it’s entirely possible that he’s annoyed someone higher up the tree and they have been looking for something to use against him. The petty vindictivenss of many in this organisation knows no bounds.
No need for even that mean motivation. The CofE hierarchy is rotten with cowardice, wokeism and unbelief. If anything directly contradicts the words, life, and redeeming death of Jesus, you can rely on the Jellybaby crew to support and enforce it.
“vitamin D associated with bettert Covid outcomes” (Barcelona study)
Heck, if they wen the whole hog and did what the Orthomolecular Medicine News Service recommended, they might even have to withdraw emergency authorisation for “vaccines” and that would never do, would it?
orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v16n04.shtml
Maybe a silly question, but when are our clueless (or worse) politicians going to do something about it? I really don’t see how their actions (and inactions) can’t be costing lives.
The proof of the pudding… How are believers in orthomolecular medicine getting on? Are there trials against Covid-19?
“places of worship used as ‘vaccine’ centres”.
It’ll be a cold day in hell when they use our place of worship as a vaccine centre. Are the “vaccine” crooks by any chance getting desperate?
One of our local Methodist churches is currently a vaccination centre and our own church applied to be one (turned down, as there is already a huge one in the town). On my London walk last week I found a couple of portacabins outside Stratford church labelled ‘covid test centre’ but locked up and deserted. Whether it was for the congregation to get tested before going in I don’t know….. These things are seen by the churches as ‘doing their thing for the community’ – when I voted against the proposals I was seen as an outsider.
Almost like its the “new” religion…or so they would like us to believe.
That’s exactly what it is, and has been since March 2020. There is no god but Covid, and the NHS gets its profit.
“Yeadon subjected to vilification and smears”.
When reasoned argument doesn’t work…
“Manual Chevron’s France tempts 12 year olds with shooting and military helicopter simulations [in ‘vaccine’ drive]”.
Yes, they are desperate. And despicable. And craven. When the reckoning comes… “Aux armes, citoyens”.
” Jacinda’s government to remain ‘single source of truth’ for NZ”.
Blimey, it really is a cult isn’t it? I wonder if that truth will include sky rocketing child hospitalisations as a result of their NPI’s?
She, Macron, Biden, Merkel&co clearly demonstrate that they have all gone mad now- they are currently in the Nero decree stage.
Whom the God’s want to destroy….
Freedom Day!!!
My arse
“and he thinks it could be twice that”
And when inevitably it isn’t will this doom monger be sidelined.
Of course not. Because the media loves their new Mystic Meg.
I think he could give a prediction for each star sign…
Tauran’s face a particular risk from the bull variant.
“Any sensible view of risk would start from the proposition that we should treat vaccinated people differently from the unvaccinated”
Why? The adult population has all been offered the vaccine now. All the vulnerable population has had the option of a 2nd jab. Therefore anybody unvaccinated has chosen that approach and that choice should be respected.
We have done as much as we can. Time to get back to normal.
If the NHS doesn’t have capacity now, it needs more capacity.
ITEM: Victoria has recorded a whopping 12 new cases of COVID-19, and, according to 9News, the snap lockdown is likely to be extended“
Victoria’s madness is being seriously challenged by South Australia. We have just been ordered into a semi-lockdown (bans on indoor dining, the closure of non-essential retail, hairdressers and gyms, the cancellation of contact sports, indoor venue capacity limits, private gatherings capped at ten, masks everywhere, etc. etc.) after two (two!!) positive tests, one of them a ‘weak positive’ (i.e. traces of a long-ago virus infection, or, in other words, a false negative).
I fear that nearly everyone will obey the new edicts but I’ll be catching a bus and going to the supermarket sans any face rag like the last time we had this quasi-lockdown spasm. I am so over this now (never into it, to be honest).
In no other place is the sunk cost fallacy on display as it is in Australia and New Zealand.
The political price of admitting isolation is a failed long term strategy is too high for any politician or public official to bear.
As evidence now demonstrates beyond any doubt that these new vaccines do not stop infection at all, there is no way out for you.
You guys are stuck with that lunacy for a long long time.
Good on yer, mate!
“Any sensible view of risk would start from the proposition that we should NOT treat vaccinated people differently from the unvaccinated,”
“And if we did so regardless of thereby engaging in and normalising arbitrary discrimination again, we would have to test only the vaccinated, as only they can be asymptomatically infectious.”
Fixed that for the war criminal turned eugenicist and sadistic discrimination advocate.
The City Journal article is the must read of the day! To see so many instances where those who questioned (not even disagreed) with the SAGE/WHO/Fauci orthodoxy on Covid banned from publication and silenced…it killed people. And it will kill people for years to come. The gatekeepers are unelected and unaccountable, and their power must be broken. No one wants a complete huckster like the one in the movie Contagion to sell fake cures to the needy, but you don’t shut up science to fight a few frauds and quacks. This is why a full and independent inquiry is needed, so the costs of lockdown become known, so the failed modelers are shamed, so the censors are revealed and reviled and so we can actually learn from this. I know I’ve been wrong and read some research that in greater review ended up missing the mark. That is how we humans advance, by learning, testing and changing to match reality. That was denied us! A must read!
Agree. A very good piece.
It won’t change anything, but it can and will be used as evidence by the prosecution eventually.
Steve Baker once again showing his stupidity by suggestion that Parliament should decide SAGE membership. The Parliament voting 650 versus 0 for introducing LD in the first place, a beacon of enlightenment? The best judge of membership? Idiotic. What was needed was an overarching Public Health Group taking into account ALL aspects of the pandemic due to resource allocation and following NICE guidelines for money allocation for diseases. SAGE would be a subgroup to that group and only sending suggestions upwards which could be vetoed by this group. All SAGE members would be bound to no personal interviews at all or personal opinions expressed and thrown out of SAGE if that happened.
Better that it’s parliament than some unelected bureocrat – yes, this parliament is awful but I can’t see any better way to appoint to roles like this.
The government would take the responsibility if they followed this overarching public health group or not and be accountable to the Parliament.Most MP have not even the slightest idea what a virus is,how on earth can they assess competence in this matter? You can’t avoid technocrts giving advice but as the ultimate advice would have a cost implication,then it would be up to the gov to decide.
People can be judged on their past experience, academic roles, etc – this is a standard HR issue.
I can’t see how anyone, whoever they are, could have appointed a worse panel of ‘experts’ than we currently have!
Parliament is for making laws not running the bureaucracy.
Given that they have effectively given SAGE lawmaking powers (or as good as) for the past year, it’s not unreasonable that its members should be appointed directly by the government. By delegating it to one person they end up with near-guaranteed groupthink.
More fundamentally, we need a constitutional block on government’s ability to oppress us. Otherwise, a government can declare a “medical emergency” any time it wants and seize totalitarian control.
We also need to put an end to brainwashing units, such as SPI-B. It’s rather moot whether we can enjoy democratic rights, when our thoughts and feelings are being determined for us.
The countries that had it found out that it wasn’t worth the paper it’s written upon.
And in their and the UK’s case, they are all now officially signing away their sovereignty anyway, to the WHO in November.
“Dogs debut on Cannes red carpet to detect covid 19”
Are sniffer dogs the new “gold standard” for covid? I guess they can’t be any less reliable than the pcr test, and probably a damn sight cheaper too!
Probably damned more reliable! Far less painful than having that stick rammed up your nose!
Every morning my dog tests me for everything. I am negative for everything except a tendency to be mean with the dog treats.
Perhaps the canines can also make some impression on the backlog of cancer screenings.
Yes that’s been done. Cats too. Cat scans and lab tests . . .
“Any sensible view of risk would start from the proposition that we should treat vaccinated people differently from the unvaccinated,” says Tony Blair in the Daily Mail.
Oh really? Then you should have been in favour of focussed protection and the Great Barrington Declaration, Mr Blair, if you really believed in different treatment based on risk. The true risk divide is between the sick elderly and everyone else and always has been.
Why is anyone still giving that sage cunt any credibility?
Tony Blair is a f@#king monster.
Following my comments on Reunion , a volcanic island in the Indian Ocean being the hot spot of French ‘Beta variant’ , it transpires that Reunion is not on the UK’s amber plus list, just mainland France.
This is either an indication of complete idiocy or political motives.
We are following ‘the science’ my arse!
Comment on Swiss Doctor article. Its too early to make sweeping generalisations about low incidence of ‘cases’ ( positive test results) in eastern europe.
Then it conflates this with a graph of deaths with covid in the FarEast/S East Asia.
I refer to Thailand where there were hardly any deaths during the original Wuhan or subsequent variations. Now we are expected to believe that the milder dalta variant is responsible for a far more deaths? No I think its the fact that vaccinations have been pushed on the population and there are far more people now exposed to risk.
From today’s Ministry of Truth website.
There have been a further 39,950 lab-confirmed Covid-19 cases in the UK and 19 deaths within 28 days of a positive test
One would be forgiven for assuming that this means lab cultured samples rather than the discredited PCR tests, which also require a lab. Women w I doubt it. It’s a misleading change of terminology to try and validate a useless testing process.
From September, only the ‘fully’ double injected can enter night clubs and large events.
Injected with that shite in a syringe that doesn’t stop anyone from getting the ‘virus’ or passing it on. Yes, that one.
Seems the gloves are off now.
One stupid cow, (Scientist/consultant/expert) just said on BBC news: “I don’t want to go on to a train or bus with people who are not wearing masks”.
WELL, LOVE, DON’T BLEEDIN GO ON THEM, THEN!!
PATHETIC!!!