DrBea.COM | Dr. Bea - News Archive









Archived News of the Week

April Newsletter 2021

I don't know about you guys, but I am feeling my own very special kind of COVID Fatigue as viral death and destruction has just passed the year milestone. I am not feeling fatigue - or anhedonia as the newspapers are calling it - as much as I am feeling annoyance and irritability. (I could add despondency when I think of all the senseless murders.)

These feelings unfortunately threaten to flow into the rest of my life. It's very hard to feel positive, joyful and exuberant and it takes a lot of effort to reframe negative thoughts into positive thoughts nowadays. But, we must, because we don't want to draw negativity towards us. You could do this: Say to yourself like I do several times a day the first and last sentence in the first stanza of ee cummings' incredible poem "I thank you God for most this amazing day... and for everything which is natural which is infinite which is YES!" That'll put your head on a bit straighter.

I guess that I am also expressing a gene variant of the aged: The Curmudgeon Gene. This annoying gene was first discovered in the year 1993 by the late Walter Matthau in the movie Grumpy Old Men. This gene is usually confined to the male sex and comes into full bloom in men on their 60th birthday. There is a gene variant for women called the Querulous Gene, but this unfortunate gene, which raises women's voice an octave and adds a screech - doesn't come into bloom until much later, say 75 or 80. There is something which will dampen the Curmudgeon Gene and it's called cannabis, or if you like, a very dry martini. This may put the Curmudgeon Gene to sleep for a couple of hours and give his wife and children a nice break. And if this fails and the marriage is in jeopardy, there's always Prozac which is to be taken until the wife's Querulous Gene kicks in at which time all hell will break loose and there is literally no hope for either one of them.

I will be activating my Querulous Gene now and will discuss, yet again, statin drugs. I have recently seen 2 patients - older women - who were prescribed statins and, as far as I am concerned, have no business being on them. I have no idea why the MDocs give statins to older women and it makes me querulous and cranky. I feel, like a lot of others, that cholesterol is actually a benevolent bystander in the process of ASVD (arteriosclerotic vascular disease) and is not directly involved in the ASVD process. The toxic debris from stress, bad fats, sugar, the environment, chemicals (The Bounce you use in your dryer! Don't get me started.) is what actually causes the arterial plaque, not cholesterol. Cholesterol is the band aid and band aids are good.

A few years ago, I have to admit that I finally caved to the insane pressure from the medical community and decided to try a statin drug for the inherited high cholesterol from my mother (300+). I said, what the hey, I'll just try it. Can't hurt, right? Oh, so wrong. Within 3 days of starting Zocor, I had lost my short term memory and it was awful and scary. I stopped the Zocor immediately and thankfully got all of my marbles back. I imagine that my cholesterol levels are still in the 300's, but I don't care. - it's just fine with me whatever the number is.

Cholesterol is protective and essential to cell walls and as you can see, to brain composition and health. In fact, cholesterol's job is to run around and fix all of the injuries to the inside of the artery wall. So lowering cholesterol to 150 and under (which cardiologists LOVE) doesn't make sense to me. You have a fire inside the artery wall and you are disabling the fire trucks? You have a wound inside the artery wall and you are ripping off the band aids?>/p>

Instead of statins try fish oil - at least 2,000 mgs. per day - to reduce inflammation and to reduce bad oxidized cholesterol and Q100 to aid the general health of the heart. I am also a proponent of older folks taking Gotu Kola and Hawthorne, both excellent for maintaining small and large vessel health. And on the very important emotional/spiritual level, forgiveness is extremely important to heart health, not only forgiving others but yourself, see following quote from Abraham.

"There is nothing for you to go back and live over, or fix or feel regret about now. Every part of your life has unfolded just right. And so - now - knowing all that you know from where you now stand, now what do you want? The answers are now coming to you. Go forth in joy and get on with it."

Another wonderful thing to do for a strong and good heart is to eat right: Make eating healthy food a priority most of the time. Concentrate on veggies first, fruits second, and lean flesh last. As I mentioned in my last newsletter, I am intrigued with the Pegan diet, an oxymoronic combination of vegan and paleo, but again the emphasis is on veggies and lean meats with some fruit. PBS now has a special with Mark Hyman talking about his latest book on Peganism.

And if you want to keep your brain remembering where you put your car keys avoid these 5 "foods" - to call them foods is debatable as they are more like additives and chemicals: MSG, Sucralose (Splenda), Aspartame (Nutrasweet), Diacetyl (butter flavoring, especially in microwaveable popcorn, and aluminum.


home   directions  about me    what i do    mission statement    handouts    newsletters    suggested reading   archived hot news   webmaster

No statement or content in this web site shall be construed as offering diagnosis, cure, mitigation or prevention of any disease. Anyone having questions regarding the content of this site should contact their own health care provider for verification.