BY W. GIFFORD- JONES MD & DIANA GIFFORD-JONES
How carefully have you been reading our column over the past year? Take our True or False quiz.
- The liver converts excessive amounts of fructose into fat. Glucose, the other component of sugar, is burned up as energy by all cells.
- It’s prudent to brush the tongue after eating, not just your teeth, as this removes bacteria, fungi, and even protozoa from deep fissures with benefits for your overall health.
- Magnesium found in dark leaf greens and whole grains helps to dilate arteries and lower blood pressure.
- The World Health Organization and 15,000 scientists have signed a petition warning humanity to cut back on eating meat, citing the environmental harm of methane-emitting cattle.
- Light therapy releases morphine-like substances, helps with the formation of new blood vessels, and cures 60% of patients with degenerative changes in the lumbosacral region of the spine and compression of spinal nerves.
- Artificial intelligence developed by a Canadian company is assisting in early diagnosis among the 425 million patients worldwide that has diabetes, complicated by retinal atherosclerosis, and stand to lose their sight.
- Men suffering from chronic obstructive lung disease are more often correctly diagnosed than women with the same problem who are more likely to be labelled as having a psychiatric problem.
- There may be 2,000 ticks in an acre of forestland. A classical tick bite rash looks like a bull’s eye with a clear center, but only three people in ten get this rash.
- Keep the toilet seat down when flushing. A report in Physics of Fluids advises it’s better to keep viruses in the bowl. Spray, they say, can fly as high as three feet and in public toilets even higher.
- Dr. Charles Matthews of the Nutrition Cancer Institute in the U.S. pooled data from nine studies which analyzed how activity affected fifteen types of cancer. Those who engaged in 7-15 hours of physical activity a week showed significantly lower risk of seven of the fifteen cancers.
- Authorities say that the safe limit for canned goods such as acidic foods like canned tomatoes and other fruit is eighteen months. For canned vegetables, beans, meats and poultry, it’s two to five years. A dented or rusty is a red flag. A swollen can means harmful bacteria are present and the can must be thrown away.
- A Gifford-Jones Law states that one degenerative disease often leads to another and another. This is why the epidemic of obesity often leads to type 2 diabetes and the complications of blindness, kidney failure and amputation of legs due to atherosclerosis (hardening of arteries).
- For baby boomers (born between 1945 and 1965) having hepatitis C, it most likely was transmitted long ago through contact with contaminated blood before robust controls were in place.
- A study at Boston University showed that cortisone injections for knee arthritis should be limited to 2-3 a year to decrease the risk of cartilage damage.
- International viral experts report that 1,000 milligrams of vitamin C taken three times a day, 3,000 international units (IU), 400 milligrams of magnesium and 30 milligrams of zinc daily will decrease the risk both of developing coronavirus and of dying of it.
The answers? All items are true.
We close out this disastrous year of 2020 with a wish to all readers for your good health and a better year ahead.
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Dr. W. Gifford-Jones, MD is a graduate of the University of Toronto and the Harvard Medical School. He trained in general surgery at Strong Memorial Hospital, University of Rochester, Montreal General Hospital, McGill University and in Gynecology at Harvard. His storied medical career began as a general practitioner, ship’s surgeon, and hotel doctor. For more than 40 years, he specialized in gynecology, devoting his practice to the formative issues of women’s health. In 1975, he launched his weekly medical column that has been published by national and local Canadian and U.S. newspapers. Today, the readership remains over seven million. His advice contains a solid dose of common sense and he never sits on the fence with controversial issues. He is the author of nine books including, “The Healthy Barmaid”, his autobiography “You’re Going To Do What?”, “What I Learned as a Medical Journalist”, and “90+ How I Got There!” Many years ago, he was successful in a fight to legalize heroin to help ease the pain of terminal cancer patients. His foundation at that time donated $500,000 to establish the Gifford-Jones Professorship in Pain Control and Palliative Care at the University of Toronto Medical School. At 93 years of age he rappelled from the top of Toronto’s City Hall (30 stories) to raise funds for children with a life-threatening disease through the Make-a-Wish Foundation. Diana Gifford-Jones, the daughter of W. Gifford-Jones, MD, Diana has extensive global experience in health and healthcare policy. Diana is Special Advisor with The Aga Khan University, which operates 2 quaternary care hospitals and numerous secondary hospitals, medical centres, pharmacies, and laboratories in South Asia and Africa. She worked for ten years in the Human Development sectors at the World Bank, including health policy and economics, nutrition, and population health. For over a decade at The Conference Board of Canada, she managed four health-related executive networks, including the Roundtable on Socio-Economic Determinants of Health, the Centre for Chronic Disease Prevention and Management, the Canadian Centre for Environmental Health, and the Centre for Health System Design and Management. Her master’s degree in public policy at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government included coursework at Harvard Medical School. She is also a graduate of Wellesley College. She has extensive experience with Canadian universities, including at Carleton University, where she was the Executive Director of the Global Academy. She lived and worked in Japan for four years and speaks Japanese fluently. Diana has the designation as a certified Chartered Director from The Directors College, a joint venture of The Conference Board of Canada and McMaster University. She has recently published a book on the natural health philosophy of W. Gifford-Jones, called No Nonsense Health – Naturally!
