People are getting fatter, at least in the industrial world.  In fact, it’s become the single largest health problem facing most first world nations.  With increased obesity comes more heart disease, diabetes and other health conditions.   It’s often been stated that the United States is the fattest nation in the world.   That’s not actually true.   The US is near the top, but several are in fact, fatter.  A number of small nations and the nation of Kuwait have higher rates of obesity and heavier populations than the US.  Canada and Mexico are both on par with the US, as is Egypt, while the United Kingdom is rapidly catching up.

In fact, the problem is nearly universal in most first world countries.  Across Western Europe, waste lines are growing.   Germany, Ireland, Finland, Greece, Spain and others have seen obesity skyrocket in recent years.   In both Australia and New Zealand, obesity rates are now described as “epidemic” and continue to rise.   The nations with the fastest growing obesity rates, however, are those which are still developing industrially.   Although the overall prevalence of obesity in Chile, Brazil and India are low, they are growing at the highest rates. In China, obesity was once extremely rare, but in the past decade has become common.   Even Japan and South Korea are seeing rising obesity, despite having had a reputation for generally lean populations.

The common yet false claims:

If you ever happen to watch a youtube video or visit a website claiming dangers associated with food irradiation, genetic modification or the use of vaccines, modern medicine etc etc, you will very often hear claims that it is the reason why the population is obese. Pictures of unhealthy, overweight kids are often shown alongside warnings of the evils of modern agriculture.

Others will say that we need to “detoxify” to become thinner. That seems to be an odd suggestion, since fat is not toxic but the result of your body absorbing and storing nutrients, which is what it’s supposed to do. Others insist that the answer is eating only organically-certified foods.

NOT reasons why people are fat:

• Vaccines
• Antibiotics
• Chemtrails
• Genetically modified foods
• High fructose corn syrup being used as a sweetener (as opposed to cane or beat sugar)
• Food irradiation
• Bisphenol A
• “Toxins”
• Insecticide residue
• Fluoridation of water
• A need to “detoxify” the body

Reasons why people are fat:

• Eating large amounts of high calorie food
• Sedentary lifestyles

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I just stumbled onto one of the most ridiculous things I’ve read in a long time.   Apparently it’s believed that Bill Gates, who has, though his foundation, contributed hundreds of millions to global vaccine efforts said something which some believe was an admission that vaccines are killing everyone and that his contributions are entirely aimed at reducing world population by destroying the health and reducing the lives of people who are vaccinated.
Via “World Truth TV”:

In a recent TED conference presentation, Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates, who has donated hundreds of millions of dollars to new vaccine efforts, speaks on the issue of CO2 emissions and its effects on climate change. He presents a formula for tracking CO2 emissions as follows: CO2 = P x S x E x C.

P = People S = Services per person E = Energy per service C = CO2 per energy unit

Then he adds that in order to get CO2 to zero, “probably one of these numbers is going to have to get pretty close to zero.”

Following that, Bill Gates begins to describe how the first number — P (for People) — might be reduced. He says:

“The world today has 6.8 billion people… that’s headed up to about 9 billion. Now if we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we could lower that by perhaps 10 or 15 percent.”

You can watch this yourself at: http://www.naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=A…
Reducing the world Population through vaccines

This statement by Bill Gates was not made with any hesitation, stuttering or other indication that it might have been a mistake. It appears to have been a deliberate, calculated part of a well developed and coherent presentation.

So what does it mean when Bill Gates says “if we do a really great job on new vaccines… we could lower [world population] by 10 or 15 percent?”

Perhaps that’s the whole point of it. Given that vaccines technology help almost no one from a scientific point of view (http://www.naturalnews.com/029641_v…), it raises the question: For what purpose are vaccines being so heavily pushed in the first place?

Bill Gates seems to be saying that one of the primary purposes is to reduce the global population as a mechanism by which we can reduce CO2 emissions. Once again, watch the video yourself to hear him say it in his own words: http://www.naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=A…
How can vaccines actually be used to reduce world population?

Let’s conduct a mental experiment on this issue. If vaccines are to be used to reduce world population, they obviously need to be accepted by the majority of the people. Otherwise the population reduction effort wouldn’t be very effective.

And in order for them to be accepted by the majority of the people, they obviously can’t just kill people outright. If everybody started dropping dead within 24 hours of receiving the FLU shot, the danger of vaccines would become obvious rather quickly and the vaccines would be recalled.

Thus, if vaccines are to be used as an effective population reduction effort, there are really only three ways in which they might theoretically be “effective” from the point of view of those who wish to reduce world population:

#1) They might kill people slowlyin a way that’s unnoticeable, taking effect over perhaps 10 – 30 years by accelerating degenerative diseases.

#2) They might reduce fertility and therefore dramatically lower birth rates around the world, thereby reducing the world population over successive generations. This “soft kill” method might seem more acceptable to scientists who want to see the world population fall but don’t quite have the stomach to outright kill people with conventional medicine. There is already evidence that vaccines may promote miscarriages (http://www.naturalnews.com/027512_v…).

#3) They might increase the death rate from a future pandemic. Theoretically, widespread vaccination efforts could be followed by a deliberate release of a highly virulent flu strain with a high fatality rate. This “bioweapon” approach could kill millions of people whose immune systems have been weakened by previous vaccine injections.

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What happens when you blindly take traditional, alternative and otherwise unproven preparations for medical conditions? Prepare for the distinct possibility of irony.

There’s a way of knowing whether a given compound has therapeutic properties and whether it’s safe in general – scientifically controlled clinical studies.   Alternative remedies, which include many traditional and regional preparations were not the result of scientific study.  A few have been subjected to scientific scrutiny and proven to be worthwhile.  When this happens, they stop being “alternative medicine” and become simply “medicine.”

For all the rest, it’s just hit or miss, and more often than not, it’s miss.  Guided by old traditions, anecdotes and old wives tales, the actual effect on the body could be just about anything.

Such would seem to be the case with birthwort.   Birthwort is a family of plants which have been regarded as medicinally beneficial for centuries, despite complete lack of evidence for this.   The exact reason for the belief is unclear, although it might have to do with the fact that some of the compounds in the plant do have antimicrobial properties and thus could be useful as an antiseptic, if only topically.   Another reason for the belief that it has useful medical properties is the so-called doctrine of signatures – a discredited belief that herbs are useful in treating a part of the body which they resemble.   Birthwort is noted for having a shape that is similar to the human uterus.  For this reason, it was believed to be useful for reproductive and genital health and for fertility.

It also has been used for various kidney problems, including kidney stones and urinary tract problems.   Again, the reasoning for this is not entirely clear.  It may be an extension of the belief that it is helpful for health issues involving the genitals or it could just be that it gained a reputation for being something that people with kidney problems swore by.   Whatever the case, it was not science-based.  That said, it was accepted for many years.

Like many “alternative” remedies, it remained on shelves, largely unquestioned until people started getting sick and dying enough to catch someone’s attention.   This happened in 1991 when a clinic in Brussels, Belgium started offering the herb as part of a weight loss regime.   Although it was known for some time that the plant contained potent toxins, it was not until a large number of women in Brussels began to show up at doctors with acute kidney failure that it became evident that the plant was more dangerous than anyone had suspected.

Upon further investigation it turns out that the long trusted, yet untested herb is in fact, a potent carcinogen and that use of the quantities common in traditional preparations can cause kidney damage, amongst other things.

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Sorry for the lack of posts recently, but I’ve been extremely busy.
If you’re looking for something worth reading on the subject of science, medicine and public understanding (or ignorance) and how this can manifest itself, check out Strange History: Mass Hysteria Through the Years.

It’s a rundown of some of the more interesting incidents of mass hysteria, where numerous people began to manifest symptoms based entirely on their belief that something existed when it didn’t. It’s actually more common than one might think. History is littered with examples of whole populations erupting in uncontrollable laughter, people believing they could not breathe and thus passing out, men panicking that their penises were retracting into their bodies or the female equivalent, where women believe their reproductive tracts are closing up. In some cases, individuals have injured themselves in an attempt to stop the fictional condition from progressing.

Never put 100% trust in anyone, not even yourself!

Jessica Ainscough is a model and fashion writer turned “wellness warrior.” She’s an Australian media personality who, in 2008, was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer that is slow growing but extremely prone to spreading and which doctors recommended be treated by amputating an arm, where the tumor was located.  It’s understandable that someone would want to avoid such radical and disfiguring surgery, but for this type of cancer, such extreme measures provide the best long term prognosis.   Ainscough elected to have intensive local chemotherapy instead, which eventually did eliminate all detectable cancer.   Sadly, it recurred about a year later, as this type of cancer often does.  At that point, her doctors advised her that amputation was the best option for treatment.

The story might have ended there and been the sad tale of a young lady who lost an arm to cancer.   However, due to her poor choices, the story is much much sadder.   Ms. Ainscough decided to decline further treatment.  She instead opted for an organic diet, coffee enemas and various detoxification rituals.   She believes she is “healing” her cancer and that this is an example of her taking responsibility and doing the right thing.

Ms. Ainscough looks pretty good and, according to her, she feels pretty good.   That’s actually not too surprising.  The cancer has invaded her soft tissues and is growing and spreading, but, at least from the sound of it, it has not become debilitating just yet.   The sad thing is Ms. Ainscough seems to be very confident she is getting better because she lacks the most basic understanding of what the condition is and how it needs to be treated.   It’s certainly true that surgery, chemotherapy and radiation are damaging, but that’s because they have to be.  Cancer cannot be “healed.”  It must be killed.  Cancerous cells are damaged cells of ones own body, which grow out of control, due to a breakdown in the function of the mechanisms that control cellular growth.   Cancer is a problem inherent to animal cell biology, it can happen in anyone, for any number of reasons, but usually with no single attributable cause, and when it does, the only way it can be cured is by destroying the cancerous cells.

Ms. Ainscough’s complete lack of even the most basic understanding of how cancer is treated is apparent in some of her statements, such as this one:

Drugs do not cure cancer. They just don’t. Every now and then, chemotherapy and radiation treatments may put a patient into “remission”, but this is not truly healing. This is certainly not a cure. Why? Because cancer is so much more than the tumour it shows up as. The tumours are merely the symptoms. And when you just target the symptom without dealing with the root cause, the disease is going to keep showing up. You can chase the disease around your body with surgery and radiation, and you can douse it with toxic chemicals, but this is not an effective long-term solution. This is why you here so often of people whose “cancer came back”. They didn’t do the work to truly reverse their disease. Cancer is nothing more than your body telling you that something has got to give. It is the result of a breakdown in your body’s defenses after it has endured years of abuse in the form of a toxic diet, toxic mind and toxic environment.

No. That’s not it at all. The tumors are the problem. The tumors are composed of the cancerous cells that are the root of the problem and the reason it often comes back is that it’s so damn hard to get every one of those cells, especially when they start spreading to different areas of the body.   While cancer can be the result of carcinogenic chemicals, it can also be caused by heredity or by the random degradation of genetic material that happens as a result of cellular respiration.

Let me be blunt about the sad truth here.  Jess Ainscough is going to die.   I don’t mean in fifty years either.   The cancer she has now is going to kill her.   It’s too late for her to have a good prognosis, and if she continues without treatment, then the already poor odds are going to get worse.   She may feel okay for the time being, but she will die.  Her only hope is spontaneous remission, which in this kind of cancer is all but unheard of.

I should note that I am not a doctor and I do not have access to Ms. Ainscough’s complete medical information.  However, what I do know is that she claims to have been diagnosed with epithelioid sarcoma.   If this is indeed true (and if it’s a lie then she’s downright evil), and if she is not receiving treatment by surgery, radiation and chemotherapy, then the cancer can be expected to be fatal.   This has been confirmed by experts I have consulted before writing this.  As one put it “Not treating epithelioid sarcoma is suicidal.”

The thing that really bothers me, however, is that she is working very hard to put out the message that her non-treatment is working and is the best course of action.  She’s been embraced by the media and this idiocy could easily kill others who buy into it.

Via Dolly:

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Recently came across an especially irritating editorial in the Washington Times and decided I really could not let the contentions stand.

Here it is, by Dariusz Leszczynski:

Helsinki/Finland, January 11, 2012-Epidemiological studies are given the most weight in evaluation of human health effects. Therefore, when researchers started their effort to find out whether cell phone radiation causes brain cancer, epidemiology was given the most of attention – and the most funding.

Well… yes, since Epidemology is the study of health events, disease patterns, health statistics and disease rates and their relation to factors like environment, lifestyle and other causes, it would seem to be the field of study that would apply to such a question.

It’s as straight forward as determining that geology is the appropriate field of science to look to when trying to determine the characteristics of a rock.

However, and please let me play “devils advocate”,

Only if I can play with science advocate.

is the epidemiology overrated?

No.

There, are we done?

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This is a rarity. I’ve seen something so horrible and I’m so goddamned angry about it that I can’t even think of what to say. It’s astoundingly disheartening to see such a professional, compelling and effective set of lies being purported to further infectious disease.

Hopefully by posting this garbage I can get some sound-minded people to vote it down a bit and make some rational comments to educated those who might believe this dangerous message.

Here it is. The Greater Good: Supposedly a fair look at vaccines, but actually one of the worst pieces of lying propaganda I have ever seen.

This is beyond shameful. It’s a very skilfully made, compelling set of bold faced lies that tug on heartstrings and can easily cost lives. Defeating this kind of propaganda is going to be very difficult. It’s a potent weapon against the war on infectious disease that humanity has fought for its entire history. We’re really going to have to work hard to fight this filth. It may require writing letters to the film festivals and venues that show it.

For a complete and well researched refutation of the film, please visit Science Based Medicine.

Oh, and by the way, there’s no evidence that the health problems of the young lady shown in the beginning are at all related to vaccines. She began to experience health problems which were diagnosed as central nervous system vasculitis and central nervous system lupus “within weeks” of her third dose of the HPV vaccine, but there’s absolutely no evidence the two are related and in all likelihood, the condition had been developing for some time before that. Of course, it’s very sad that she has this condition, but it was not caused by the vaccine. You can read more about it on the Science Based Medicine page.

It is going to be very very hard to counter this kind of media. We’re facing an uphill battle. The major pro-vaccine groups have nowhere near the money necessary to produce a film of this kind of quality and if they did, it would just be portrayed as proof of all the dirty money that big pharma is spending. The only way of combating this is to redouble grass roots efforts, but with this well funded and cunning opposition, it won’t be easy.

In the war on infectious disease, it now seems we have two enemies working in close alliance. One is the pathogenic microbes who seek to invade our bodies and the other is the humans who have defected to their side. I’m not sure anymore which is the tougher one to defeat.

Today I almost plunked down money for a useless product that was being sold to treat a condition it won’t actually help. No, it wasn’t on purpose and in the end, I caught myself but I came a lot closer than I’d have liked to falling for the scam and if I didn’t make it a point to be careful of this I would have.

Today has not been a good day for me. I woke up this morning with an itchy, watering, irritated eye. I wiped it, I splashed water in it and that did not seem to help. By the time I was driving to work my other eye was bothering me. In fact, my eyes were so irritated I could hardly keep them open for long and they were watering enough to make it a bit hard to see, especially with the glare of the early morning sun, low on the horizon. I had to keep stopping the car and wiping the tears from my watering eyes, closing them to regain my vision and returning to the road until they started bothering me enough to stop again.

By the time I was at work, it had become obvious that I was suffering from conjunctivitis, commonly known as pinkeye. The outer layer of my eye, the conjunctiva, had become inflamed and was bloodshot, itchy and irritated. It’s a fairly common condition which can be caused by a bacterial or viral infection. In my case, I’d later find out I probably have a minor viral infection, based on the symptoms. It’s generally not terribly serious and tends to clear up on its own within a couple of days, but it’s annoying and uncomfortable. It’s also fairly contagious, so it’s important to wash one’s hands, avoid touching common surfaces when possible and clean those that are touched.

My condition, however, was bad enough that I figured I should probably see a doctor. I made a call to my doctor’s office and was told that unless it was an emergency they wouldn’t be able to have anyone to see me until later in the afternoon. Of course, it’s not an emergency, so I was agreeable to waiting a few hours to have my eyes looked at.

Given that I had to wait a few hours, I went to my local drug store to see if there were any products that might be able to offer some kind of relief in the meantime. I wasn’t looking for a cure, but as my eyes were pretty sore, I thought that there might be some kind of anti-itch, anti-irritation eye drops that would, if nothing else, at least be soothing to my sore eyeballs.

And this is where I almost got swindled, because as I scanned across the shelf of eyedrop products, something caught my watery, itchy, squinting eyes:

I saw the pink eye and the words “Pinkeye relief,” and immediately thought to myself “Well that’s exactly what I’m looking for!”  I then read the indications, stating that it provided relief from redness, irritation and watery discharge.   Again, I thought it was perfect.

You may notice that there word “homeopathic” is written in thin white font against the red background of a tiny band that runs around the box just bellow the picture of the eye.   I literally couldn’t see this at all in my state.    I was really and truly about to buy this product.  Luckily, I have a habit of looking at the back fine print whenever I buy a health product, and this was no exception.  Despite my irritation, I wiped my eyes and forced them all the way open to examine the directions and active ingredients of the product.  Only then did I actually see the words “homeopathic.”

I’m also lucky in that I know what “homeopathy” means, which many people do not.   The fact that it’s homeopathic means that everything else on the front of the box can be discounted as a lie.  It says “relieves the redness, watery discharge & burning associated with conjunctivitis.”  Well, it doesn’t.  That’s just a bold faced lie.   You might think that it would do so, because it says it does right on the box and most products you find on the shelves of your local pharmacy are required by law to only make truthful statements about what symptoms they can provide relief to, but this is homeopathic, so they can lie.

The active ingredients are belladonna, euphrasia and hepar sulphuris, not because these ingredients actually have been shown to help the symptoms of pinkeye, but because if you put them in a healthy eye, they’ll make it get red, irritated and watery.   However, they’re diluted to the point where there are only a few molecules or less actually present in the final product, so there’s really no effect.   The only thing this product might do to help pinkeye is just provide a little bit of lubrication and moisturizing, which any eyedrop could do.

I was lucky to catch this.  In the end I bought some general purpose anti-itch eyedrops that cost half as much as the homeopathic version and actually have some active ingredients that help provide some itch relief.   They didn’t help all that much, but they seem to reduce the itch a bit.   (Note, this is not a placebo controlled study thus my opinion that they seem to help should not be considered to be an objective fact.)

But still, I was very nearly swindled by an extremely dishonest product making a false claim and sitting next to perfectly legitimate products in similar packaging on the same shelf.

And yes, I’m pissed!

I wonder if they actually picked the font and colors to make it intentionally difficult for a person with watery, irritated eyes to see it.  It wouldn’t surprise me if that was the case.

I wrote about this kind of thing a while ago, but this is the first time I was almost swindled, because I’m usually very careful about these sort of things.

This has got to be one of the most bizarre, crazy and just plain disgusting stories I’ve heard in a long time.

Chickenpox is a pretty nasty disease to have.  Like most adults, I went through it when I was a child because there was no vaccine at the time.  It was pretty misserable, but I was lucky, because despite missing more than a week of school and being covered with an  itchy, painful rash, I didn’t have any lasting effects.   Some are not so lucky.  It’s fairly common to be left with disfiguring scars, especially on the face, from chickenpox (I know a few people with such marks on their cheeks or forehead).   It’s less common, though not unheard of to have more severe and lingering effects and occasionally even death.

The virus tends to be less severe in children than adults, there was once a custom of intentionally infecting children with the disease.   So-called “pox parties” were held where children intentionally came into contact with others with chickenpox to get the disease when young.  Whether exposing children to the disease intentionally was ever a justifiable idea is debatable (most medical experts think it was always a bad idea), but it certainly is not any more.   These days, there is a vaccine for chickenpox that is highly effective and avoids the discomfort, suffering, dangers and possible disfigurement of the disease.   The vaccine is now part of the normal vaccine schedule and most children receive it.  Chickenpox is therefore far less common than it once was.

But what to do if you’re a vaccine fearing idiot?  Since the antivax crowd seems to think that getting infections is a good thing and boosts the immune system, a pox party seems like it would be right up their ally.  The only problem is that the vaccine has reduced the number of cases of chickenpox enough to make it difficult to find a good pathogen host to infect your kid with.   So what to do?   Why not use social networking to find other like-minded morons around the world and swap spit by mail with them.

The most popular and widely reported on Facebook group for doing this appears to have been recently shut down, but that’s unlikely to actually stop anyone in the long run.

I’m not even kidding…

Via the Los Angeles Times:
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A cautionary tale of how medicine can become far too accepting of a procedure of limited value and great potential for harm…

First, some background on the lobotomy:

The lobotomy may well be the most notorious and misunderstood medical procedure ever to have been developed.   It’s the butt of many jokes and is portrayed widely in the media as a savage operation preformed on those who were unruly as a means of turning them into dribbling vegetables, incapable of resisting and placid in all respects.  This is partially true, but is an overly simplistic portrayal of what the lobotomy really was and how it was used.

To understand the use of the lobotomy one must first realize the environment it was developed in.  Prior to the mid 20th century, there was very little that could be done for the severely mentally ill. Psychotherapy existed and was useful in helping those with problems like anxiety, phobias and depression better manage their symptoms, but this could do little for the truly insane. For those who suffered from severe delusions, violent episodes, severe depression with suicidal tendencies, extreme bipolarism, there was no effective therapy.

Such individuals were placed in mental institutions, where they were often forced to live the entirety of their lives.   Often miserable places, institutions provided little more than warehousing for many individuals.   Mental institutions were enormous, becoming huge communities onto themselves.  Attempts were made to make life more pleasant by providing  classes and recreation, but the enormous expense of caring for the populations made that difficult to do on a large scale.   The worst cases were often left restrained or locked in padded cells.  With so many completely crippled by mental disease, conditions could easily degrade to the point where wards became filthy and filled with the screams of insane patients.

The origins of psycosurgury can be traced back to the 1880’s, when Gottlieb Burckhardt, a Swiss neurosurgeon began to experiment with operations on the brains of the most severely insane. Small sections of brain were removed in the hope that it might calm the continual mania of the patients operated on. The results were not encouraging, but research continued into the 20th century. It was known that traumatic brain injury, brain tumors or their removal could alter a person’s personality, but only the most basic understanding of the regions of the brain associated with various aspects of thought and emotion existed.

The lobotomy was developed in 1935 by Portuguese doctor António Egas Moniz, who intitially called the procedure the leukotomy. Moniz had become aware of experiments carried out on apes in which portions of the brain were intentionally removed or disconnected. Operations that removed the frontal lobes had a major effect on the learning capacity of the animals, but also made them more placid and less prone to expressions of frustration and emotional outbursts. He believed that doing so on humans might allow those with the most violent psychiatric episodes to lead more normal lives, or at least be more manageable. Early experiments involved injecting alcohol into the nerves that connected the frontal lobes to the rest of the brain. This was later replaced by simply cutting the connections.

The belief at the time was that mental illness was caused by areas of the brain becoming too active or the brain being overstimulated and going haywire with out of control signals. It was thought that there was simply too much emotional activity that that cutting away the overly active portions of the brain would relieve this. While this belief is not always entirely false, it’s overly simplistic and does not apply to most cases of mental illness.  While there are portions of the brain that are associated with certain functions or aspects of personality, it is far too complex for a single region to be defined as the source of something like delusions, violent episodes or depression.

Still, the procedure did appear to have some validity. Many of those who received the operation did indeed become calmer and more easy to manage. Contrary to popular belief, it did not necessarily render the individual incapable of speech or basic function, although this did sometimes happen. It seems that overall, the results were highly variable. This is likely attributable to the simplicity and crudeness of the surgery. It involved drilling holes in the head of patients and cutting the pathways by inserting instruments. Exactly what kind of effects this had on the brain could vary quite a bit, especially since the individuals it was preformed on had all manner of conditions to begin with.

Early observations considered the outcome of the procedure to be result in a 33% to 33% to 33% success rate. In other words, roughly one third of patients could be considered to have improved from the operation. One third could be considered to be worse than before the operation and one third were roughly the same. This is hardly a stellar success rate, but given the lack of options for the worst cases of mental disease, it may have seemed worth the risk. There certainly were a few cases of individuals who seemed to gain extensive relief with few complications, but these were relatively rare.

A few individuals died during the procedure.  Others were left completely incapacitated and severely disabled.  Many, however, did retain their basic abilities to communicate and do simple tasks.   Some lost the ability to walk or talk but subsequently relearned it.   A number of reports indicated that the patients became very child-like and lost the ability to comprehend complex concepts.  Lack of emotional responses or social capacity was also reported.   Another effect was the loss of inhibitions.  Many seemed to have no fear or anxiety, even in circumstances where it would be appropriate.  Apathy and social disconnection were common.  Many patients began to overeat and put on large amounts of weight.  Some developed complications ranging from incontinence to lack of balance to sleep disorders.

The psychiatric community accepted the procedure with varying levels of enthusiasm. It gained rapid acceptance across the world, but many remained uneasy about the implications and ethical considerations. It was used primarily on the worst of the worst cases, at least initially. Directors of mental hospitals welcomed anything that could make it easier to manage their overcrowded wards, resulting in an expansion of use that raised questions about whether it was really being used as a last resort. Overall, the procedure was never without controversy, but given the lack of alternatives, it often was considered about the only thing that could be done to at least try to relieve severe mental illness.

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