Drug-Induced Dementia isn’t Alzheimer’s
“More than 50 conditions can cause or mimic the symptoms of dementia.” and “Alzheimer’s (can only be) distinguished from other dementias at autopsy.” – from a Harvard University Health Publication entitled What’s Causing Your Memory Loss? It Isn’t Necessarily Alzheimer’s
“Medications have now
emerged as a major cause of mitochondrial damage, which may explain
many adverse effects. All classes of psychotropic drugs have been
documented to damage mitochondria, as have stain medications, analgesics
such as acetaminophen, and many others.” – Neustadt and Pieczenik, authors of Medication-induced Mitochondrial Damage and Disease
“Establishing
mitochondrial toxicity is not an FDA requirement for drug approval, so
there is no real way of knowing which agents are truly toxic.” - Dr. Katherine Sims, Mass General Hospital -http://www.mitoaction.org
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!” – Upton Sinclair, anti-fascist, anti-imperialist American author who wrote in the early 20thcentury
“No vaccine manufacturer shall be liable…for damages arising from a vaccine-related injury or death.” – President Ronald Reagan, as he signed The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act (NCVIA) of 1986, absolving drug companies from all medico-legal liability when children die or are disabled from vaccine injuries.
Over the
past several decades there have been a number of well-financed
campaigns, promoted by well-meaning laypersons, to raise public
awareness to the plight of patients with dementia. Suspiciously, most of
these campaigns come from “patient support” groups lead the public to
believe that every dementia patient has Alzheimer’s dementia (AD).
Not so
curiously, it turns out that many – perhaps all – of these campaigns
have been funded – usually secretly – by the very pharmaceutical
companies that benefit economically by indirectly promoting the sale of
so-called Alzheimer’s drugs. Such corporate-generated public relations
“campaigns” are standard operating procedure for all of BigPharma drugs,
especially its psychopharmaceutical drugs. BigPharma has found that the
promotion and de-stigmatization of so-called “mental illnesses (for
which there are FDA-approved drugs) is a great tool for marketing their
drugs.
Recently
Alzheimer’s support groups all around the nation have been sponsoring
the documentary about country singer Glen Campbell who has recently been
diagnosed by his physicians with Alzheimer’s disease (of unknown
etiology) despite the obvious fact that Campbell was infamous for his
chronic heavy use of brain-damaging, dementia-inducing, addicting, and
very neurotoxic drugs like cocaine and alcohol. And, just like so many
other hard-living celebrities like the recently suicide Robin Williams,
Campbell was known to have received prescriptions of legal drugs from
their prescribing boutique psychiatrists and physicians, just adding to
the burden that their failing livers, brains and psyches had to endure.
Since it
is known that Alzheimer’s disease can only be truly diagnosed by a
microscopic examination of the cerebral cortex (at autopsy), we have to
question the very alive Glen Campbell’s diagnosis. And we also have to
question the veracity and motivations of the sponsoring patient support
groups and their BigPharma sponsors.
Is the Alzheimer’s Epidemic Actually a Drug-Induced Dementia Epidemic?
Synchronous with the huge increases (over the past generation or so) in
1) the incidence of childhood and adult vaccinations,
2) the widespread use of psychotropic and statin (cholesterol-lowering) drug use, and
3) the increased ingestion of a variety of neurotoxic substances –
including food additives, there has been a large parallel increase in
the incidence of
a) chronic illnesses of childhood, including autistic spectrum disorders
b) “mental illnesses of unknown origin”, and also
c)
dementia, a multifactorial reality which, via clever marketing and the
studied ignorance of what is scientifically known about the actual
causes – and diagnosis – of dementia, which has been primarily – and
mistakenly – referred to as Alzheimer’s disease (of unknown etiology).
It is
important to ask and then demand an honest answer to the question “could
there be a connection between America’s increasingly common
over-prescribing of immunotoxic, neurotoxic, synthetic prescription
drugs and vaccines and some of the neurodegenerative disorders that
supposedly “have no known cause”?
Could the
economically disabling American epidemic of autoimmune disorders,
psychiatric disorders, autism spectrum disorders, etc (all supposedly of
unknown origin) that have erupted over the past several decades be
found to have recognizable root causes and therefore be treatable and,
most importantly, preventable?
These are
extremely important questions, especially in the case of the current
dementia epidemic, because the so-called Alzheimer’s patient support
groups seem to be totally unaware of the powerful evidence that
prescription drugs known to damage brain cells (especially by poisoning
their mitochondria) would be expected to cause a variety of neurological
and psychological disorders because of the brain cell death that
eventually happens when enough of the mitochondria (the microscopic
hearts and lungs of every cell) have been wounded irretrievably or
killed off. (See more info on drugs and mitochondria below.)
One of the
big problems in America’s corporate-controlled culture,
corporate-controlled media and corporate-controlled medical industries
is that the giant pharmaceutical corporations, who are in the business
of developing, marketing and selling known mitochondrial toxins (in the
form of their drugs and vaccine ingredients) have a special interest in
pretending that there is no known cause for the disorders that their
synthetic chemicals are causing (or they use the unprovable “it’s
probably genetic” subterfuge).
It should
be a concern of everybody who knows a demented patient, that some AD
patient support groups are known to be front groups for the
pharmaceutical companies that profit from the marketing to patients and
their doctors the disappointingly ineffective drugs for Alzheimer’s like
Aricept, Exelon, Namenda, Hexalon, and Razadyne.
Prescription Drug-Induced – and Vaccine-Induced – Mitochondrial Disorders
Acquired
mitochondrial disorders (as opposed to the relatively rare primary
mitochondrial disorders like muscular dystrophy) that can be caused by
commonly prescribed drugs are difficult to diagnose and are generally
poorly understood by most practitioners. When I went to med school,
nobody knew anything about what synthetic drugs or vaccines did to the
mitochondria.
A lot of
mitochondrial research, especially since the 1990s, has proven the
connections between a variety of commonly prescribed medications and
mitochondrial disorders. That evidence seems to have been cunningly
covered-up by the for-profit pharma groups (who control medical
education and much of the media) and various other powers-that-be
because of the serious economic consequences if the information was
allowed in the popular press. The stake-holders in the pharmaceutical
and medical industries, most of whom profit mightily from the routine
and increasing usage of neurotoxic drugs and vaccines, supposedly
operating in the name of Hippocrates, would be very displeased if this
information got out. I submit that BigPharma’s cover-up of the
connections is totally unethical and, in the opinion of many other
whistleblowers, criminal.
An Honest Patient Guide for Dementia Patients from Harvard!
So I was pleasantly surprised to find a reasonably honest guide for dementia patients on a Harvard University website.
(The entire guide can be accessed at http://www.helpguide.org/
The
information at that website stated that there were over 50 conditions
that could cause or mimic early dementia symptoms. I hadn’t been taught
anything about that reality when I went to med school, and I doubt that
many of my physician colleagues were either. And besides, what medical
practitioner in our double-booked clinic environment, even if he or she
was aware, has the time to thoroughly rule out the 50 conditions when
confronted with a patient with memory loss?
I have
often said to my patients and my seminar participants: “it takes only 2
minutes to write a prescription, but it takes 20 minutes to not write a
prescription”. And in the current for-profit clinic culture, time is
money and few physicians are given the “luxury” of spending adequate
time with their patients. (In defense of the physicians that I know,
they are not happy about that reality but don’t know what to do about
it.)
It is so
tempting to use the popularized, but rather squishy label of AD (of
unknown etiology) rather than to educate ourselves about the possibility
of drug- or vaccine-induced dementia. But what is so important is that
many of the 50+ conditions are preventable or reversible, which will be
therapeutic only if the conditions are identified before permanent brain
damage occurs.
The Harvard guide actually said that “medications
are common culprits in mental decline. With aging, the liver becomes
less efficient at metabolizing drugs, and the kidneys eliminate them
from the body more slowly. As a result, drugs tend to accumulate in the
body. Elderly people in poor health and those taking several different
medications are especially vulnerable.”
The guide continued with a list of the possible classes of prescription drugs that number in the hundreds:
“The list of drugs that can cause dementia-like symptoms is long. It includes antidepressants, antihistamines, anti-Parkinson drugs, anti-anxiety medications, cardiovascular drugs, anticonvulsants, corticosteroids, narcotics, sedatives.”
The
Harvard guide went on to emphasize that Alzheimer’s can only be
accurately diagnosed on a post-mortem examination. The guide states
that “Alzheimer’s is distinguished from other dementias at autopsy by the presence of sticky beta-amyloid plaques outside brain cells (neurons) and fibrillary tangles within neurons (all indicative of cellular death). Although
such lesions may be present in any aging brain, in people with
Alzheimer’s these lesions tend to be more numerous and accumulate in
areas of the brain involved in learning and memory.”
“The leading
theory is that the damage to the brain results from inflammation and
other biological changes that cause synaptic loss and malfunction,
disrupting communication between brain cells. Eventually the brain cells
die, causing tissue loss In imaging scans, brain shrinkage is usually
first noticeable in the hippocampus, which plays a central role in
memory function.”
But even the Harvard guide inexplicably failed to mention known mitochondrial toxins such as
statin drugs, metformin, Depakote, general anesthetics, fluoroquinolone
antibiotics, fluorinated psychotropic drugs, NutraSweet (every
molecule of aspartame, when it reaches 86 degrees F, releases one
molecule of the excitotoxin aspartic acid and one molecule of methanol
[wood alcohol] which metabolizes into the known mitochondrial poison
formaldehyde [embalming fluid]), pesticides (including the chlorinated artificial sweetener Splenda, which was initially developed as a pesticide) or themercury (thimerosal), aluminum and formaldehyde which
are common ingredients in vaccines. These are only some of the
synthetic drugs that are capable of causing mitochondrial damage in
brain cells – with memory loss, confusion and cognitive dysfunction, all
early symptoms of dementia.
It
is tragic, but all–too-common, for reversible and preventable
drug-induced dementias (therefore of known cause and thus not
Alzheimer’s) to be mis-diagnosed as Alzheimer’s disease “of unknown
etiology” and to then be prescribed costly, essentially ineffective and
potentially toxic drugs – whose mitochondrial toxicities have not been
tested for.
(The
pharmaceutical industry, it should be noted, is not required by the FDA
to test its drugs for mitochondrial toxicity when it is doing its
studies for marketing approval, again exhibiting the total disdain for
the Precautionary Principle by both industry and the regulatory agencies
such as the FDA, the CDC and WHO.)
There is much more in the basic
neuroscience literature proving the connections, at least from authors
who do not have conflicts of interest with BigPharma and BigMedicine.
The authors of these articles have raised the questions and have
published the proof that concerned families of patients and their
physicians desperately need to know.
Don’t expect BigPharma to respond or to
offer apologies or mea culpas. Do expect denials, dismissals,
distractions, discrediting and then the delaying of real legitimate
explorations of the real scientific evidence that exposes its subterfuge
in the name of maintaining large profits for their stakeholders.
Here
are the abstracts from just two of the many peer-reviewed articles from
various science journals that support the thesis of this column.
Medication-induced mitochondrial damage and disease
Published in the Molecular Nutrition and Food Research journal; 2008 Jul;52(7):780-8.
Authors: Neustadt, J, Pieczenik SR.
Posted at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/
Abstract
Since the first
mitochondrial dysfunction was described in the 1960s, the medicine has
advanced in its understanding the role mitochondria play in health and
disease. Damage to mitochondria is now understood to play a role
in the pathogenesis of a wide range of seemingly unrelated disorders
such as schizophrenia, bipolar disease, dementia, Alzheimer’s disease,
epilepsy, migraine headaches, strokes, neuropathic pain, Parkinson’s
disease, ataxia, transient ischemic attack, cardiomyopathy, coronary
artery disease, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, retinitis
pigmentosa, diabetes, hepatitis C, and primary biliary cirrhosis.
Medications have now emerged as a major cause of mitochondrial damage,
which may explain many adverse effects. All classes of psychotropic
drugs have been documented to damage mitochondria, as have stain
medications, analgesics such as acetaminophen, and many others. While
targeted nutrient therapies using antioxidants or their precursors (e.
g., N-acetylcysteine) hold promise for improving mitochondrial function,
there are large gaps in our knowledge. The most rational approach is to
understand the mechanisms underlying mitochondrial damage for specific
medications and attempt to counteract their deleterious effects with nutritional therapies. This article reviews our basic understanding of how mitochondria function and how medications damage mitochondria to create their occasionally fatal adverse effects.
Mitochondrial Dysfunction and Psychiatric Disorders
From: The Journal of Neurochemical Research 2009 Jun;34(6):1021-9.
Posted at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/
Abstract
Mitochondrial
oxidative phosphorylation is the major ATP-producing pathway, which
supplies more than 95% of the total energy requirement in the cells.
Damage to the mitochondrial electron transport chain has been suggested
to be an important factor in the pathogenesis of a range of psychiatric
disorders. Tissues with high energy demands, such as the brain, contain a
large number of mitochondria, being therefore more susceptible to
reduction of the aerobic metabolism. Mitochondrial dysfunction results
from alterations in biochemical cascade and the damage to the
mitochondrial electron transport chain has been suggested to be an
important factor in the pathogenesis of a range of (so-called) neuropsychiatric disorders, such as (psychotropic drug-treated) bipolar disorder, depression and schizophrenia….Alterations of mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation in (anti-psychotic drug-treated) schizophrenia
have been reported in several brain regions and also in platelets.
Abnormal mitochondrial morphology, size and density have all been
reported in the brains of (anti-psychotic drug-treated) schizophrenic individuals. Considering that several
studies link energy impairment to neuronal death, neurodegeneration and
disease, this review article discusses energy impairment as a mechanism
underlying the pathophysiology of some psychiatric disorders, like (psychotropic drug-treated) bipolar disorder, depression and schizophrenia.
Dr Kohls is a retired
physician who practiced holistic mental health care for the last decade
of his career, and took seriously the Hippocratic Oath that he swore
when he received his medical degree. He is also a peace and justice
advocate and writes a weekly column for the Reader Weekly, an
alternative newsweekly published in Duluth, Minnesota, USA. The last
three years of Dr Kohls’ columns are archived at http://duluthreader.com/
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