Statin Choir Boy Turns Disbeliever by Jeffrey Dach MD For many years, Stephen Sinatra believed in statin drugs and prescribed them as a cardiologist in Connecticut.  He gave lectures to other cardiologists on the merits of statin drugs at medical meetings on behalf of the drug companies.  However, after a time, he became disillusioned and […]

Statins Reduce Peri-Operative Mortality, Surely You Must Be Joking Another Medical Hoax I was intrigued by Dr London’s report in December 2016 JAMA of decreased peri-operative mortality in statin users.(1)  This result does not seem immediately intuitive.  Statin drugs inhibit an enzyme in the liver called HMG-CoA reductase involved in cholesterol production, thereby reducing cholesterol […]

Testosterone Therapy Prolongs Life and Improves Survival by Jeffrey Dach MD Unfounded Fears More recently, in the past few years a flurry of articles and studies have come to light by Drs Traish and Morgentaler debunking the two unfounded fears regarding testosterone therapy in androgen deficient males.(7-13) The first unfounded fear is the false medical […]

Low Testosterone Associated with Increased Mortality by Jeffrey Dach MD Forty Per Cent More Likely to Die Two reports published in the recent medical literature showed that low testosterone is associated with increased mortality.(1)(2)(3)  Upper Left Image: Chemical structure of human, bio-identiical testosterone courtesy of wikimedia commons. In the first study from 2006, low testosterone […]

Linus Pauling Heart Disease Prevention with Vitamin C This article is part one, for part two click here. The Steam Roller is Not Joking I once had a conversation with a cardiologist friend of mine in which I casually mentioned the Linus Pauling Theory of heart disease, and the subsequent idea that a non-toxic nutritional […]

Why Are One in Six On Psychiatric Meds ? by Jeffrey Dach MD A JAMA article reported one in six Americans take psychiatric medications.  These are mostly SSRI antidepressants such as Lexepro, benzodiazepines (Xanax), and sleeping pills (Ambien and Lunesta). (1)  Above left image Jack Nicholson on Meds in Psych Ward One Flew Over the […]

Needless Fear of Estrogen Replacement Causes Massive Suffering and Increased Mortality by Jeffrey Dach MD According to a new study, fifty thousand women died needlessly because of fear of estrogen replacement after hysterectomy.(3) Both Time Magazine and the LA Times  declared 50,000 women’s lives could have been saved.(3,4)  Hysterectomy causes estrogen deficiency, a heath risk […]

Online Information for Hashimotos Thyroid Disease Susan has Hashimotos’ thyroid disease, and has been online gathering information and learning as much as she can.  However, Susan is bewildered by the amount of contradictory and conflicting information, and is asking me for a list of recommended information sites.  One such recommended information site is Thyroid Pharmacist, […]

Preventing Coronary Artery Disease with Bioidentical Hormones by Jeffrey Dach MD The “Flip Flop” on Estrogen and Heart Disease Medical science has done a “Flip-Flop” on estrogen and coronary heart disease.  Prior to 2003,  Forty observational studies showed that post-menopausal hormone replacement protected women from coronary artery disease and heart attacks.  Left image  “Flip Flop” […]

Low Thyroid, Hashimotos and Pregnancy by Jeffrey Dach MD Today is a happy day for Susan.  She just delivered a healthy baby girl, and mailed me a cute photo of the baby from her hospital bed,  Six months before, Susan was weeping in my office, recounting her story of repeated miscarriages and fertility problems.  Her […]

Chronic Stress – Nervous Breakdown and Catatonia The classic 1949 war movie, “Twelve Oclock High” starring Gregory Peck, reveals the effect of chronic stress on B-17 pilots during the war.  After many weeks of stressful daylight bombing raids,  Gregory Peck suffers a nervous breakdown, and is carried away in a catatonic state.   I was impressed […]

Low Thyroid Condition Predisposes to Death From Infectious Disease The greatest American Endocrinologist, Broda Barnes MD, was an astute clinician who observed the low thyroid condition is associated with  reduced immunity to infectious diseases.  These teachings of Dr Barnes (1906-1988) can be found in his book, Hypothyroidm, the Unsuspected Illness.  Unfortunately, the mainstream endocrinologists of […]

Clostridia Difficile Enterocolitis Causes Prevention and Treatment by Jeffrey Dach MD If you wake up one morning in a hospital bed, you might want to know your risk of C Diff (Clostridia Enterocolitis) is increased if the previous occupant  was given antibiotics, according to a study in JAMA.(1) Left image Clostridia Difficile Electron Microscope Image […]

Dr Antonio Bianco Rattles Cages in Mainstream Endocrinology Dr Antonio Bianco asks a very important question, “Does a normal serum TSH indicate adequate treatment in patients given levothyroxine (T4-only) medication?” His answer, published in the Oct 2016 Endocrinology and Metabolism, may rattle a few cages, and is in agreement with what we have been writing […]

Fake Research on Heart Disease by Sugar Industry by Jeffrey Dach MD Fraudulent research comes in many flavors.  Perhaps the most memorable scientific fraud was the 1974 case of Dr William Summerlin, a dermatologist at Sloan Kettering who claimed to solve transplant rejection by grafting black skin onto white mice.   However, one day the elevator […]

Probiotics Decrease Mortality from Stem Cell Transplantation by Jeffrey Dach MD We are continually surprised by new studies showing the importance of the microbiome, or “friendly bacteria” colonizing the gut.  One such study was done  by Dr Ying Taur published in the hematology oncology journal, Blood, in 2014.(1) Bacterial Diversity Associated with Improved Survival Dr […]

Hyperthyroidism from Autonomous Thyroid Nodule Iodine Induced Hyperthyroidism by Jeffrey Dach MD Brenda, a young woman from “the islands”  came in for a routine lab evaluation.  Her spot urine test for iodine  came back, “zero”, indicating iodine deficiency.   Brenda was born and grew up one one of the Caribbean Islands,  a geographic low iodine region, […]

Alum Jax Cole Thyroid Cancer Epidemic of Overdiagnosis The American Idol finalist Alum Jax Cole announced that she underwent thyroid surgery in April after discovering a “lump in her neck”.  She is now receiving radiation treatments, presumably radioactive iodine (I-131), after the finding of thyroid cancer at surgery.(1-3) An Epidemic of Overdiagnosis of Thyroid Cancer  […]

Steven A Rosenberg MD and the Race for CAR T-Cell Cancer Therapy This article is part oneFor part two, Click Here by Jeffrey Dach MD Expecting the Unexpected Laboring tediously for hours on end, medical students inject cancer cells into mice, producing many publications in prestigious journals.  As you might expect, all the cancer injected […]

Two UCLA Studies Show Menopause Accelerates Aging A new study by Dr Morgan E. Levine from UCLA in PNAS shows that  menopause accelerates aging. (1)  A second study by Dr Judith Carroll from UCLA reported in  Biological Psychiatry that “insomnia symptoms are implicated in accelerated aging”.(2)  Insomnia is a frequent menopausal symptom, along with other […]