Episodes

  • Unnecessary Surgery and the Watch Analogy

    Unnecessary Surgery and the Watch Analogy
    Aug 27 2023
    Unnecessary Surgeries + The Watch Analogy The Green Book Series Today I want to apply some common sense, straight line thinking to a problem that is plaguing all “health care systems” worldwide, especially here in the United States.  That problem is unnecessary surgeries.   This has been an issue for over a century!  Dr. BJ Palmer, the world’s most pioneering chiropractor wrote about this for years.  Sadly, his warnings about this topic have fallen on deaf ears as the prevalence, cost and damage to patients done by unnecessary surgeries has skyrocketed!  Nevertheless, his words of wisdom are as prescient today as they were back then which is why I would like to share them with you today! But first, let’s add some context to this discussion.  This is an excerpt from the International journal of clinical practice in 2014: “US health care expenditures per capita far exceeds that of ANY other nation in the WORLD.  Indeed, over the last 15 years, the USA has distantly surpassed most countries in the developed world in total healthcare expenditures per capita with the USA now spending over 17.4% of its gross domestic product on health care ($7960 per capita) compared with only 8.5% of GDP in Japan ($2878 per capita) a distant second.  Such spending growth rates are unsustainable, and the system would soon go broke if not corrected.  The drivers of these spending growth rates in US healthcare are several and varied.  In September of 2012, the Institute of Medicine reported that US healthcare squandered over $750 billion in 2009 through UNNEEDED care.”  Now, with all that spending, surely we have the best outcomes right?..... WRONG, dead wrong in fact.  A 2022 report by The Common Wealth Fund revealed we rank 38th in the world in life expectancy, which is LAST for all major developed nations, there are 3rd world countries with higher life expectancies!  If that was not bad enough, did you know of all countries in 2020, The United States possessed the HIGHEST infant mortality rate which is markedly higher than Norway which was the top country in the world for having the lowest infant mortality rate.  This was reported in The American Journal of Managed Care in January of THIS year, 2023.  This is from the Journal Patient Safety In Surgery in 2017 Title, “Why do surgeons continue to perform unnecessary surgery?” Please listen very closely, what you are about to learn will likely be quite shocking.. “This unrecognized problem has escalated so far that medical errors currently rank as THE 3RD leading cause of death in the United States. Strikingly, in the 21st century, we still have to come to terms with the absurd reality that it is significantly safer to board a commercial airplane, a spacecraft, or a nuclear submarine, than to be admitted to a US hospital!” Let me repeat, medical errors account for the 3RD leading cause of death in the US, over 440,000 people die in the US per year!  Shouldn’t that be a headline on the news??  Keep in mind that data is from 2013, all indications suggest the current number of deaths caused by medical errors are EVEN higher!  Many of those deaths are due directly or are related to complications from unnecessary surgeries.  What is unnecessary surgery?  They define it as follows: “Any surgical intervention that is either not needed, not indicated, or not in the patient’s best interest when weighted against other available options, including conservative measures.”  That last part is extremely important, they included conservative measures being something that should be done if it can benefit the patient over surgery.  Chiropractic is such a measure, which in many cases should be used first BEFORE resorting to surgery.  Notice I said in many cases.  Of course, there ARE TRUE surgical emergencies and a number of conditions where surgery IS what SHOULD be done.  In these instances, surgery can be absolutely lifesaving and or life changing.  Thank god we have skilled surgeons & modern techniques for THOSE instances!  However, those true surgical cases are NOT our focus today.  Today’s focus is on unnecessary surgeries. If you are wondering: Just how many surgeries are performed in the US, each year, the numbers are  staggering: In the US there are 40-50 MILLION surgeries performed each year! According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, nearly 16% of all surgeries may be unnecessary: that would mean in the US there are between 6.4 and 8 MILLION unnecessary surgeries performed each year! In 2020 In the US alone over 700,00 arthroscopic partial knee meniscectomies are performed every year.  Recently, a randomized, double-blind, sham controlled trial (highest level of evidence), revealed NO benefit for patients from the surgery at the 12 month follow up vs. those that did not have surgery. This study, The Finnish Degenerative Meniscal Lesion Study” certainly ruffled some feathers amongst the surgical ...
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    25 mins
  • Improvement in Autistic Behaviors Following Chiropractic Care: A Case Series

    Improvement in Autistic Behaviors Following Chiropractic Care: A Case Series
    Apr 24 2022
    Welcome to the Back to Health Chiropractic Podcast   I’m your host Dr. Marc Dupuis on this show we discuss tips, tools and strategies to improve the health & wellness of you and your family!   Today we are going to discuss a 2011 Case Series titled, Improvement in Autistic Behaviors Following Chiropractic Care.  This case series was published in the Journal Pediatric, Maternal & Family Health, in December of 2011. As many of you are all too well aware, the rate of Autism is rising at an extremely alarming rate.  In the United States, as of 2021, 1 in 44 children are being diagnosed with Autism!  In the 1990’s the rate was 2 out of 1000 children and in the 1980’s it was 10x’s less than that, just .1 - .4 children per 1000 were being  diagnosed with autism!   We need all hands on deck to tackle this massive health issue.  Today’s discussion is NOT focused on the likely causes of this massive increase, rather I want to focus on a case series that showed improvement in autistic behaviors following chiropractic care. As noted in the introduction in this paper, Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by abnormal social interactions and communication concurrent with repetitive behaviors and mannerisms. From the paper’s Abstract, Methods & Outcomes sections: Clinical Features: This case series involves two case studies.  Case one involves a 20-year old autistic male who displays aggressive behavior towards others.  Case two is a 17-year old autistic female who abuses herself.    Intervention and outcome: Both patients received a trial of chiropractic care for 5 and 4 months respectively with visit frequency of once per week.  Both patients responded favorably to chiropractic care with the male patient decreasing in aggressive behavior and the female patient decreasing in self-abuse and improved socialization.  For the case involving the male, he attended a total of 20 chiropractic visits and was adjusted using a low force Activator adjusting tool.  He began showing signs of improvement after his 4th adjustment that involved being more co-operative, having a longer attention span and he even began to watch tv which he had not previously done. For the case involving the female, she attended a total of 16 office visits and was adjusted using a combination of low force Activator tool adjustments and drop table adjustments.  She began to show signs of improvement after her third visit in the form of sleeping through the night, which was unusual and she demonstrated less self-abuse.    Conclusions: Each had favorable results after undergoing chiropractic care.  This case series provides supporting evidence that individuals with autism may benefit from chiropractic care.  More research is warranted in this area.  Now let's talk about the likely mechanisms behind chiropractic care and the results from this case series.  As we discussed recently in another neurodevelopmental disorder and chiropractic paper summary, the MAIN goal of chiropractic care is to improve brain-body, body-brain communication.  We do that by analyzing the spine for abnormally positioned or abnormally moving spinal segments, known as vertebral subluxations.  Vertebral subluxations are corrected by specific chiropractic adjustments. Because vertebral subluxations, by the stress caused to the surrounding spinal cord and nerve roots, cause nervous system interference, it should make sense that correcting vertebral subluxations reduces nervous system interference and therefore could help those suffering from neurodevelopmental disorders.  I will cover the more technical aspects of exactly how this works but first; It is very important to note: people alway ask, does chiropractic cure this or can chiropractic fix so and so conditions?  The answer is no, chiropractic is designed to do one thing and one thing only: correct vertebral subluxations which enables the body to better do what it was designed to do!  Of course, by helping the body to better do what it is designed to do, this results in improved health & healing which explains why so many health challenges and perhaps why the two individuals with autism as described in this case series responded well to chiropractic care!   Now, to get technical about how chiropractic care improves brain-body, body-brain communication.  The authors describe one likely mechanisms of action: Recent research has demonstrated that spinal adjustments to vertebral subluxations can lead to neural plastic changes in the central nervous system (As demonstrated in the 2010 paper Haavik, Taylor, Holt, Murphy, Exploring the neuromodulatory effects of the vertebral subluxation and chiropractic care in the Chiropractic Journal of Australia).  Plastic changes in the brain can alter the way the brain synthesizes and releases neurotransmitters.  This may be significant as abnormal levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin have been found in individuals with ASD.  ...
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    9 mins
  • Autism, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder & Chiropractic: Literature Review

    Autism, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder & Chiropractic: Literature Review
    Apr 10 2022
    Autism, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder & Chiropractic: Literature Review Welcome to the Back to Health Chiropractic Podcast   I’m your host Dr. Marc Dupuis on this show we discuss tips, tools and strategies to improve the health & wellness of you and your family!   Today we are going to discuss a 2015 literature review, titled Neurodevelopmental Disorders and Chiropractic: A Systematic Review of the Literature.  This research review was published in the Journal Pediatric, Maternal & Family Health, in March of 2015. This topic is so important and timely since Neurodevelopmental disorders include some of the most challenging health issues facing children today, namely, ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder), ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) and ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder).  The rates of ADD, ADHD and ASD are rising within the global population at an alarming rate, while treatments seem to be sadly lagging behind.  Therefore, any intervention, especially those that are non-invasive & safe that shows promise should be looked at closely.  Despite there being numerous pharmaceutical drugs on the market for these conditions, their results are mixed and side effects are often just as troubling as the conditions they are supposed to be addressing.   The Summary or Abstract of the review is as follows:The objective: To provide a comprehensive analysis of the current body of scientific literature regarding the chiropractic management of a wide variety of neurodevelopmental disorders. The Methods of the Review: A literature search was performed using PubMed, MANTIS, the Index to Chiropractic Literature, McCoy Press, Galileo, and ScienceDirect. Inclusion criteria consisted of full-text peer-reviewed articles written in English as they related to the efficacy of chiropractic management of neurodevelopmental disorders. The Results: 50 articles were selected.  The results were: 3 Randomized Controlled Trials (RCT), 7 Reviews of Literature, 3 Case Series, 34 Case Studies and 3 Survey/Commentaries. The Conclusions: The majority of articles dealt specifically with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and attention deficit disorder (ADD)/Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and were predominantly case studies. While we believe there is enough evidence to support the use of chiropractic with children who have been previously diagnosed with neurodevelopmental disorders, especially ASD and ADD/ADHD, the chiropractic community should see this as a call to action to provide more research regarding neurodevelopmental disorders. Given that RCTs (Randomized Controlled Trials) are the gold standard of research, the authors acknowledged that although 3 RCTs supporting Chiropractic care for neurodevelopmental disorders is a great start, we need to fund additional research projects to build upon these initial studies.   Lets dive deeper into this research review.  Now, what does Chiropractic care have to do with neurodevelopmental disorders?  For those of you not familiar with HOW chiropractic actually works, the answer is quite simple.  The MAIN goal of chiropractic care is to improve brain-body, body-brain communication.  We do that by analyzing the spine for abnormally positioned or abnormally moving spinal segments, known as vertebral subluxations.  Vertebral subluxations are corrected by specific chiropractic adjustments. Because vertebral subluxations, by the stress caused to the surrounding spinal cord and nerve roots, cause nervous system interference, it should make sense that correcting vertebral subluxations reduces nervous system interference and therefore could help those suffering from neurodevelopmental disorders.    It is important to note: people alway ask, does chiropractic cure this or fix so and so conditions?  The answer is no, chiropractic’s purpose is Not to treat specific diseases, rather chiropractic’s purpose is to do one thing and one thing only: correct vertebral subluxations which enables the body to better do what it was designed to do!  Of course, by helping the body to better do what it is designed to do, this results in improved health & healing which explains why so many health challenges have responded to chiropractic care!  Getting back to this literature review the authors point out; “With rising incidences of various neurodevelopmental disorders, the likelihood of healthcare professionals encountering them as a presenting complaint in their clinics is just as likely to rise.  With chiropractors serving as portal of entry providers, it is also therefore likely that the practicing chiropractor will encounter such patients.   It is therefore important to understand the possible relationship between chiropractic care and neurodevelopmental disorders. The evidence presented within this literature review aims to demonstrate the plausibility of chiropractic care as an appropriate healthcare service utilized for neurodevelopmental disorders.  ...
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    9 mins
  • Pregnancy Basics: Heartburn

    Pregnancy Basics: Heartburn
    Feb 17 2022

    Welcome to the Back to Health Chiropractic Podcast

    I’m your host, Dr. Marc Dupuis

    On Today’s episode we bring in a special guest: Our very own Dr. Nikki Holt to discuss an issue that many pregnant women have to deal with, Morning Sickness.  We discuss natural methods & strategies that may help!

    links:

    Real food for pregnancy by Lily Nichols

    Real food for gestational diabetes by Lily Nichols

    If you enjoyed today’s show, please leave us a 5 star review on Apple Podcasts and hit the subscribe button so that you never miss a future episode!  

    Thank you very much for listening & have a great day!
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    8 mins
  • Busting Breast Cancer with Dr. Susan Wadia-Ells

    Busting Breast Cancer with Dr. Susan Wadia-Ells
    Jul 11 2021
    Dr. Susan Wadia-Ells is a long-time cultural change agent. During the 1970’s she organized women at Polaroid, creating the first affirmative action program for women within a Fortune 200 corporation, and soon became Polaroid’s corporate affirmative action manager and a mentor to other women’s groups  fighting for equal pay, training, benefits, and career opportunities. After returning to academia in the early 1980’s for a graduate degree in energy economics and political development at The Fletcher School, Dr. Wadia-Ells worked with community development groups in Zimbabwe as that nation’s long struggle against apartheid ended. Next, she operated as a small town journalist in Brattleboro VT, under the guidance of the legendary UPI International Editor, Norman Runnion. Wadia-Ells then moved on to complete her PhD in women’s studies, before teaching over the next decade in Lesley University’s Adult Baccalaureate Program in Boston—helping women learn to fearlessly write their unspoken ideas and life stories. During this time, while raising her son, she also created national feminist conferences on once-ignored or banned topics including the landmark Women’s Ways of Knowing Study—exploring the personal growth dimensions within motherhood, and understanding the power of women’s menopausal years. Her 1995 anthology, The Adoption Reader: Birth Mothers, Adoptive Mothers and Adopted Daughters Tell Their Stories (Seal Press, Seattle), helped define adoption as primarily a woman’s issue. Wadia-Ells’ column, “Honest Health”, published by the Gloucester Daily Times (MA), beginning in 2008, her long-time Busting Breast Cancer blog, and her 2013 e-book, Birth Control Drugs and Breast Cancer: Learn the Terrible Truth, all served to introduce many of the topics discussed in her 2019 book, Busting Breast Cancer: Five Simple Steps to Keep Breast Cancer out of Your Body, based on the new metabolic theory of cancer. She currently lives in Manchester by the Sea, MA. Dr. Susan Wadia-Ells, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for taking time to be with us today.  Your new book, Busting Breast Cancer five simple steps to keep breast cancer out of your body is an absolute MUST read for not just for all women but really all men so that they can support and encourage the women in their lives to be as healthy as they can!    I want to begin by asking what inspired you to dedicate so much time in the research and development of this book?   As we begin, I just want to mention some pretty scary statistics. In the United States alone, it is estimated that there will be about 280,000 new cases of invasive breast cancer in 2021 and an additional 50,000 cases of ductal carcinoma in situ!     With so many new cases each and every year the amount of fear these statistics generate in our women is staggering.  This is why your book is needed more now than ever before.  It really should serve as a beacon of HOPE because you present research supported ways for women to REDUCE their risk of break cancer….BUT many of the things they should do, will make them challenge much of what they have been told by mainstream media and the modern medical industry, including many of their doctors.  Can you speak to this challenge for women?   Let’s go right after the Elephant in the room.  All too often, as you clearly report in the book, when women are diagnosed with cancer, rarely, if ever do they get an actual scientifically supported reason WHY they developed cancer.  This bad luck, as some women are told, is one of the drivers of the fear surrounding this epidemic as women are left wondering, since no one seems to know what causes it, will I be next??     However, what most people don’t know, including many healthcare providers, is the absolute game changing research of Thomas Seyfried and his Metabolic Theory of Cancer, which for the first time in history describes the most likely CAUSE of breast cancer!  Can you summarize what he found and the importance of this discovery?   Here’s the rub, we have groundbreaking scientific research that if applied could dramatically reduce new cancers from developing and possibly save 10’s of 1000’s of lives by helping cancer patients overcome this disease, but it is pitted against a billion dollar cancer treatment industry that is predicated upon highly profitable exam procedures, surgeries, chemotherapy drugs and radiation treatments.  Can you share with our listeners the almost jubilant tone of some of these pharmaceutical companies in their annual reports as they project year over year record increases in sales of their cancer drugs?   I would love to briefly touch on some of the simple steps for women to take that you outline in your book.   Can you give a summary on why getting to a healthy body weight is so important?   This next topic was an eye opener.  Progestin containing birth control.  Can you share for our listeners the ...
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    56 mins
  • The COVID-19 PCR Test: How It Works & Its Limitations

    The COVID-19 PCR Test: How It Works & Its Limitations
    Nov 24 2020

    In this episode we discuss the COVID-19 PCR test.  We cover how this test actually works and also discuss the limitations of this test.  
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    13 mins
  • “Treat the Patient, not the infection” Cellular Theory vs. Germ Theory

    “Treat the Patient, not the infection” Cellular Theory vs. Germ Theory
    May 10 2020
    “Treat the Patient, not the infection” Cellular Theory vs. Germ Theory   Welcome to the Back to Health Chiropractic Podcast   I’m your host, Dr. Marc Dupuis   Today I want to share a recent blog post that stirred up quite a bit of attention.  The core of today’s discussion involves a critical look at long held belief, championed by French biologist, Louis Pasteur that germs cause disease and that the condition of the body or host does not play any role.  Louis Pasteur’s biggest rival was French scientist Antoine Bechamp.  Antoine Bechamp is responsible for our title quote, “treat the patient, not the infection”.  He believed that the way to prevent disease was to build up the health of the host’s body (or terrain as he called it) through proper diet, hygiene and healthy lifestyle habits. He saw the host’s body as terrain, Ultimately, Pasteur’s ideas were accepted by society and really led to our modern western medical system that is based on antibiotics, drugs and vaccinations while Bechamp’s ideas were mostly forgotten.  What most people do not know and is quite ironic is this: At the end of his life Pasteur renounced his own germ theory and admitted that Bechamp was right all along.  In fact, Louis Pasteur’s last words were “The microbe is nothing, the terrain is everything”.   Now on to the quote that our blog post began with:      “If the Germ theory were true, no one would be alive to believe it!” This quote by Dr. BJ Palmer may sound silly to many educated people, however, for those with the most up to date, researched based education on the human immune system, it actually makes a lot of sense. Think about it: As of May 1, 2020, the COVID-19 virus has been attributed to 235,000 deaths worldwide. There are approximately 3,337,000 confirmed cases worldwide. There are  2,047,000 active cases world-wide, 98% of those infected have mild symptoms while 2% are in serious or critical condition.  Over 1,054,000 have fully recovered from COVID-19. New research shows that there are likely 50x more people that have had it but have never been tested since the majority of people infected (~80%) will have mild symptoms and a majority of them will not even require ANY medical intervention, therefore they are not being tested and thus are not being counted. So, if the majority of those who have recovered required little to no medical attention, what is the difference between those that have died and those that survived? It’s the same virus that infected both serious and mild cases. The difference has to be in the condition of the HOST, not the virus itself! Here is a simple but accurate analogy. Think of the body as a mansion. Now think of two mansions on the same street. The first one has not been well maintained. It has large cracks in the foundation, there are holes in the siding, the roof is in disrepair and is leaking. The garbage has never been taken out, so the basement is filled with countless bags of it rotting away. The homeowners left the pantry with boxes and bags of junk food half open and spilled out onto shelves and ground. The second mansion has been well maintained. The foundation does not have any damage, the exterior siding is air-tight and has an extra layer of insulation. The roof is intact and does not leak. There is no garbage left in the house. The homeowners have kept the pantry clean, all foodstuffs are kept in sealed containers. Which mansion do you expect to eventually become overrun (infected) with rats? Of course, the first mansion. The first mansion has all of the ingredients needed for rats to thrive in it! The problem with the first mansion is not the existence of rats. Rats have been around long before the mansions were built. The problem is the first mansion has become the perfect host for rats. The owners of the first mansion can pay exterminators to kill off the rats, but if they do not fix the cracks in the foundation, patch the holes in the siding and roof and if they do not get rid of the garbage, clean and secure the food in the pantry…. The rats will come back! That is not hard to understand. This is how it works with the human body. When not properly cared for it can become a suitable host for pathogens like bacteria and VIRUSES to cause damage. The problem is not the bacteria or virus itself. The problem is with the person’s body has become a suitable host. If you are still stuck on the belief that the problem is the virus or bacteria think about this: The human body is made up of about 70 trillion cells. Did you know that we have 10x the amount of bacteria on us and IN us! What is even more interesting, is that a plethora of research has shown that many of those bacteria species live symbiotically in us, promoting numerous factors of health for the human host. The complete collection of bacteria that live on & in us is considered our microbiome. When a person has a wide variety of beneficial bacteria, those ...
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    14 mins
  • Your Body IS the Miracle! Life University's Vice President Dr. GIlles LaMarche

    Your Body IS the Miracle! Life University's Vice President Dr. GIlles LaMarche
    May 2 2019

    Welcome to the Back to Health Chiropractic Podcast

    I’m your host Dr. Marc Dupuis on this show we discuss tips, tools and strategies to improve the health & wellness of you and your family!

    Today I’m Excited to bring you our featured guest:

    Dr. Gilles LaMarche

     

    Dr. Gilles Lamarche is a passionate chiropractor who has practiced for more than 25 years in Northern Ontario, Canada. He is an avid student of the psychology and philosophy of success. He has spoken to audiences throughout Canada, United States, Mexico, Japan, Scandinavia, Australia, Europe and the Caribbean. He is the author and co-author of more than nine books including Say Yes to Chiropractic Success and the Parker System for Professional Success. Dr. Gilles was named Canadian Chiropractor of the Year in 2006 by the readers of Canadian Chiropractor Magazine. He is currently the Vice President of University Advancement at Life University in Marietta Georgia

     

    Dr. Gilles, welcome to the show.

     

    Dr. Gilles thank you so much for joining us today!



    First and foremost, would you mind telling our listeners a little more about you as a person and especially about how you ended up on the road to becoming a chiropractor?

     

    In doing my research for today’s conversation I learned that not only did chiropractic care save you from a lifetime of pain after suffering that injury as a child, chiropractic saved you again this time after being told as an adult that you only had 24 months to live!  Can you share with our listeners the details of this exceptionally powerful story?

     

    These stories highlight such an important point.  Yes, chiropractic care can be very helpful for those with back pain and neck pain but really, chiropractic care is about so much more than just pain management.  Can you take a moment and elaborate on this for our listeners?

     

    You speak to people all over the world, in addition to thinking that chiropractic care is only for neck pain and low back pain are there any other common misconceptions that people have about Chiropractic care?

     

    Switching gears now, would you talk about your current role at Life University, what led you to take on such a position and for those unfamiliar with Life University, can you tell our listeners a little bit about this great institution?

     

    How does Life University differ from some of the other Chiropractic Colleges?



    In addition to your own books that you have written, which we will have links to in our show notes page, do you have additional any resources that you would recommend to our listeners, this could be a book, podcast, seminar etc?

     

    How can listeners connect or follow you: Social media, websites, email etc.,

     

    Lastly, Dr. Gilles, do you have any final words    of wisdom for our listeners?

     

    Dr. Gilles, Thank you so much taking the time out of your busy schedule and for coming on the show today!

     

    links:

     

    Dr.Gilles on Facebook

     

    Life University

     

    The Art of Responsibility

    Dr. BJ Palmer's Green Books

     

    LiveVision Seminars

     

    The Rubicon Group

     

    Dr. Joe Dispenza

     

    Monica Greco BA, MA, PhD
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    40 mins