Despite yesterday we are still in a bear market. Once again time to loosen up on stocks not working, e.g. Eaton.
What I learned yesterday about Wall Street:
+ How some money managers work. Since most money managers have zero idea of which of the stocks they pick for their clients will be successful, there is one solution: Pick different ones for each client. Some portfolios will fail and you’ll lose those clients. Some portfolios will succeed and you’ll keep those clients. Perhaps they will even give you more money to manage. It’s all an interesting twist on “diversification.”
+ Why the SEC doesn’t put senior bank management in jail: It extracts big fines from their companies (e.e. JPMorgan Chase). It sees that as a victory for justice and the American way. Why not put the executives responsible for and the thievery and the resulting meltdown in jail, the answer is “that would hurt the firms’ small shareholders, who would lose if we (the SEC) deprived the banks of their talented senior management.” Actually the real reason it wa close the revolving door between Washington and Wall Street.
Another manufactured “disease” we don’t need. You get older. Your sex life changes. Bingo, opportunity for the pharmaceutical industry to sell us a “solution” — a drug to solve “low t.” This piece from yesterday’s New York Times is worth reading. Please do
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. – A FUNNY thing has happened in the United States over the last few decades. Men’s average testosterone levels have been dropping by at least 1 percent a year, according to a 2006 study in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.Testosterone appears to decline naturally with aging, but internal belly fat depresses the hormone further, especially in obese men. Drugs like steroids and opiates also lower testosterone, and it’s suspected that chemicals like bisphenol A (or BPA, commonly found in plastic food containers) and diseases like Type 2 diabetes play a role as well.Men feel the loss. Clinical testosterone deficiency, which is variously defined as lower than 220 to 350 nanograms of testosterone per deciliter of blood serum, can cause men to lose sex drive and fertility. Their bone density often declines, and they may feel tired and experience hot flashes and sweats.
But “low T,” as the condition has been labeled, isn’t nearly as common as the drug ads for prescription testosterone would have you believe. Pharmaceutical companies have seized on the decline in testosterone levels as pathological and applicable to every man. They aim to convince men that common effects of aging like slowing down a bit and feeling less sexual actually constitute a new disease, and that they need a prescription to cure it. This is a seductive message for many men, who just want to feel better than they do, and want to give it a shot, literally.
The problem is that prescription testosterone doesn’t just give your T level a boost: it may also increase your risk of heart attack. It can add huge numbers of red blood cells to your bloodstream and shrink your testes. In some men, it increases aggression and irritability. Children who accidentally come in contact with the hormone can develop unwanted pubic hair and genital changes. Last week, a large study published in the journal PLoS ONE found that, within three months, taking the hormone doubled the rate of heart attacks in men 65 and older, as well as in younger men who had heart disease. The Food and Drug Administration has begun an investigation.
The number of testosterone prescriptions given to American men has tripled since 2001. Used clinically since 1937 and approved by the F.D.A. since 1953, testosterone is now administered in at least five forms, including patches, gels and injections. Three million prescriptions were written in 2012 for the market leader AndroGel alone. Sales of all testosterone-boosting drugs are estimated to have been $2 billion in 2012, and are projected to hit $5 billion by 2017.
Too many doctors are now writing testosterone prescriptions without even measuring the patient’s hormone levels, much less re-testing for confirmation and adjusting the dose after prescription. Up to a quarter of these prescriptions are dispensed without a blood test.
From a psychological perspective, this isn’t helping men. From a medical perspective, it’s devastating. In addition to the cardiac risks, prescription T can mean a permanent shut-off in men’s own, albeit diminished, testosterone production. In other words, once you start, you may well be hooked for life.
Instead of heading to the pharmacy to get their fix, men should address the leading cause of the problem. Losing weight is a tried and true way to naturally boost testosterone levels. According to findings presented at the annual meeting of the Endocrine Society in 2012, obese men who lost an average of 17 pounds saw their testosterone levels increase by 15 percent. In general, a man’s waist should be half his height.
Some diet changes may be useful for reasons other than just weight loss. If you drink too much booze, switch to water – alcohol lowers testosterone levels. Eating more cruciferous vegetables like broccoli and collard greens can also help, by blunting the effects of estrogen in a man’s body. At the end of the day, eating more of the right foods and fewer junk foods improves mood and energy – which may be the only fix many men need.
In the 1990s and early 2000s, middle-aged women went through their own hormone trial, taking synthetic prescription estrogen and progesterone to treat the symptoms of menopause, among other reasons. But by 2002 we knew that those hormones raised the risk of stroke, heart disease, life-threatening blood clots and invasive breast cancer in healthy women.
Luckily, we don’t have to wait 12 more years to learn about the risks of testosterone in healthy men. Men have been drugged by overprocessed foods and gender-bending chemicals like BPA. The last thing they need now is a prescription for a risky drug to treat a trumped-up disease.
John La Puma is an internist and the author of “Refuel: A 24-Day Eating Plan to Shed Fat, Boost Testosterone, and Pump Up Strength and Stamina.”
Why is heroin so cheap? The drug that reportedly killed Philip Seymour Hoffman is inexpensive and readily available. Blame, in part, increased supply from Afghanistan. There’s an excellent summary piece on what’s happening with heroin in the latest issue of This Week. Click here.
Harry Newton urges you to take your family to see The Book Thief.
It’s a story about a very personal story about a young girl growing up the in the madness that was the the 1930s in Nazi Germany. It resonated with me. My father who lived in Romania went to school in the early 1930s in Southern Germany. he studied oenology — the study of wine-making. He saw what was coming first hand and he and mother, who was born in Vienna, made it on the last ship to Australia, arriving seven days before the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939. He saw what the Nazis were doing and tried to warn the people of his Romanian town, Czernowitz, to get the hell out asap. His argument: either the Nazis will get us because we’re Jews, or the Russians will get us because we’re capitalists. 90% of the town’s population was killed during the War, mostly by the Nazis. The town was heavily Jewish. One of my father’s cousins was caught by the Russians and spent 30 years plus working in a Siberian coal mine. When she was old and ready for retirement, the Russians let her out. She went to Israel. The moment she left Russia, the Russians cut her pension off. Fear pervaded our family in my childhood. My parents encouraged me to stay in the U.S. (where I’d come for an MBA). They feared the growth of anti-antisemitism in Australia. There was some antisemitism when they arrived in 1939, but, over the years, it ebbed. Not so in Europe, sadly. Please see the movie. Discuss it with the kids. Talk about the wonderful freedoms we enjoy in the U.S.
Yes, do talk to your kids about our freedom. Talk reclaiming our freedom as
protected by the original Constitution! …Stop direct taxation on our jobs and our income…End the IRS……End tax withholding…Repeal the 16th Amendment! The solution is the FairTax® bill HR25 / S122 and not the flat tax that still needs the IRS and the 16th Amendment. Learn more at fairtax.org.
Ever watched “Forks Over Knives” (DVD, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu), or read “The China Study”. A real eye opener, that could change one’s life (and health), that also relates to T and weight. Watch & read both!
Dear Harry,
I’m 61 and I’ve lost 30 lbs. in the last year. My college age son told me about a ketogenic diet. I ridiculed it when he told me. Later I looked into it more and read “Bad Calories, Good Calories”, etc.
It made too much sense after I learned more, so I started last January. I should be down 50 lbs. but I regressed and switched to a traditional balanced diet for the last two months.
Take a look at http://www.reddit.com/r/keto/ to see the experiences of regular folks using the diet. It lowers your weight and improves a number of health indices (blood pressure, triglycerides, etc.) Since it lowers your weight, it probably increases your testosterone.
Warmly,
Carl