👋 Welcome to Healthy, Again. I'm Max, and this publication is all about taking your health back: real food, straight talk, and time-tested wisdom, for you and your family.
01 73 organ donors weren't dead yet
The HHS has found 73 cases where organ procurement began on donors who may not have been dead yet. Federal reviewers went through 351 cases at Network for Hope, the organ procurement organization covering Kentucky and parts of Ohio, Indiana and West Virginia, and found problems in 103 of them. In 73, the patient still showed neurological signs that meant they should never have been a donor.
The organization is losing its federal certification and says it will appeal. It is the second one pulled in under a year. Mehmet Oz: "If you can't be trusted to safeguard patients and be responsible stewards of American taxpayer dollars, we'll find organizations that can."
02 Viagra stands up to cancer
Viagra stops cancer from spreading, and researchers finally know why. Cancer cells need cholesterol to spread. Sildenafil, the drug in Viagra, prevents the cholesterol from being used. In cancer cells and in mice this stopped the cancer from spreading.
The paper ran July 14 in Cancer Research. In people, a Swedish study followed 12,465 men with colorectal cancer, and the ones already taking it were 18% less likely to die. Pfizer has sold this pill since 1998. Who knew.
03 The dewormer clips left a lot out
We've been seeing a lot of clips making the rounds about dewormer defeating cancer. Here is what we were able to confirm so far.
The study used mebendazole, the dewormer made for people, in mice, with a ketogenic diet and a second drug. Mebendazole has been through human trials. Fenbendazole is the one made for dogs, and it is the one people are buying. It has never been in a human cancer trial. The case series everyone shares was retracted in January. Three reports of liver injury landed this year. We want this to work. Get it tested.
04 Ozempic hair loss is real. The drug isn't doing it.
Ozempic hair loss is real, and the drug is not what is causing it. A Penn study followed 12,000 adults with type 2 diabetes and found 2 to 3 extra cases per 1,000 people a year. The labels have said so for years. Wegovy lists 3.3% against 1% on placebo. Zepbound lists 7.1% in women against 1.3%. Both name the same cause. It is losing the weight fast. Lose it any other way and the same thing happens.
✿ QUICK HITS — ON OUR RADAR
The men eating the most nitrite, the preservative in bacon and deli meat, had 23% more colorectal cancer, across 82,009 Swedes followed 24 years. Nitrate from vegetables showed nothing (JNCI).
Foods with added colorings came with 55% more high blood pressure at the top of the range, and sweeteners 42%, across 101,560 UK adults followed a decade (European Heart Journal).
Workers exposed to pesticides on the job had 60% higher odds of ALS across 6 studies, and 170% higher at the heaviest exposure in 3 of them (Occupational and Environmental Medicine).
A batch of Optiray, the dye they inject into your veins for a CT scan, was pulled in the US and Mexico after plastic, steel and glass particles turned up in the vials (FDA).
Young vegans in Sweden got 100% of their vitamin B12 and vitamin D from ultra-processed food, and more of their calcium, zinc and salt than meat eaters, among 244 people aged 16 to 24 (Nutrition Journal).
✿ WILD STORY
A young man had been running a handheld percussive massage gun over and around both eyes, a few minutes weekly for three months, hoping to relieve eye strain. Six days after one session he started seeing floaters and flashes. Doctors found multiple tears in his retina, bruising on the retina itself, and a section pulled loose from its anchor.
Laser treatment saved his sight. The case ran in BMJ Case Reports in June, and the doctors made a point of noting the device shipped with no warning about using it near the eyes.
✿ ONE GOOD THING
To end on a good one: David Painter, 74, went into cardiac arrest partway around a parkrun in Wiltshire in June. PC Vicky Howick was running just behind him, off duty. She saw him go down, recognized the breathing for what it was, called for a defibrillator and started compressions with another runner until the air ambulance came. PC Nick Slade drove his wife Jackie to Bristol Royal Infirmary and stayed with her. When they met back at the park on Monday, Howick handed him a London Marathon shirt, to replace the 2016 Bath Half Marathon one that had been cut off his chest while she worked on him.