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Private equity investments are bad for health. These American style investments are incredibly unhealthy for the vehicles they, often, drive into the ground. Healthscope: The private equity fail for hospitals in Australia. What private equity does is saddle the thing that they buy with all the debt raised to purchase it in the first place. Then, it liquidates whatever juicy assets in the possession of the targeted investment vehicle. In this case, it was selling all the real estate upon which these dozens of private hospitals reside. This raised billions for the private equity firm. Following this all the hospitals had to pay commercial rents to the new owners of the land. Making operating the businesses more expensive.Continue Reading

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The human condition is not something many of us ponder until something goes wrong upstairs. Whether it be within our own psyche or that of a loved one mental illness can be a black hole of unknown dimensions adversely effecting lives. Things like anxiety and depression are often frightening due to their impact upon relatively unexplored realms. Our minds are vast repositories of memories, thoughts, feelings, and sensations (Florey, 2021). When things go wrong in our lives, we can slip into a scary world of dark shadows seemingly immune to the warmth of the sun. Beyond Blue reports that anxiety is the most common mental health issue in Australia, with one in four experiencing it at some point in their lives. Therefore, the idea that these frightening states can be influenced by the trillions of tiny creatures inhabiting our gut is immediately arresting and thought provoking.Continue Reading

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There are two seriously debilitating conditions looming large over the Australian population, as they approach later middle age. Diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease are becoming increasingly common within our western communities around the globe. Their impact upon quality of life are considerable and in Alzheimer’s case decidedly fatal. Alzheimer’s is the most prevalent form of dementia in human beings. (Vogt, 2017) Medical science continues to look for answers and cures for both these all too common diseases. Diabetes and Alzheimer’s effected by gut microbiome: New research is shining a light from an altogether new angle. (Haridy, 2021) This new, bottom up, perspective is providing valuable information and possibly new therapeutic approaches to these scourges of the twenty first century.Continue Reading

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We are not alone. In fact we are hosts to trillions of micro-organisms happily munching on our waste products and doing a sterling job within our digestive system. It may come as a bit of a shock to those of us with obsessive compulsive cleaning tendencies,  that killing all the tiny invisible bugs is not a really good idea. Bacteria are all around us, within us and performing vital tasks for our health and the health of this planet.  Of course like everything in existence there are good and bad bacteria, not intrinsically bad but just bad for humans and probably quite good for something else. The good bacteria,  or gut flora,  are involved in a myriad of useful functions, like fermenting unused energy substrates, producing vitamins for us, preventing the growth of bad bacteria, producing hormones to help us store fats and improving our immune functioning.  If we did not have all these bacteria munching away our bodies would be unable to digest many of the carbohydrates that we consume, such as certain starches, fibres, proteins, and sugars like lactose. Studies with animals indicate that we may need to eat 30% more calories to maintain our stable body weight without the helpful presence of gut flora. The good bacteria transforms carbohydrates into short chain fatty acids and these are able to be processed by our cells into nutrition  and energy. Lactic and acetic acid are also produced by this saccahrolytic fermentation and they are used by our muscles. There are numerous other positive functions supported by good bacteria in our systems.Continue Reading