Health & WellnessS


Bomb

The Hidden Time Bomb Within You: Inflammation

Paula Spencer
health.msn.com
Fri, 03 Jun 2011 20:23 UTC
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© ancientpathsnaturally.blogspot.com
5 surprising, life-changing facts to know about inflammation

Get ready for the health buzzword of 2011: inflammation. A key biochemical process inside every one of us, inflammation is the cornerstone of health and healing - and yet - unless you learn the secrets to managing it - it will also probably eventually kill you.

The good news: As scientists slowly but surely uncover how the inflammatory response works, they're learning how we can influence it to our benefit.

Here, five surprising - and life-changing - facts.

Comment: It's good to see awareness of inflammation hitting the mainstream, but this article is way off for recommending vegetables which are known inflammatory factors and a reduction in saturated fat from already dangerously low levels. SOTT sez: a HIGH-fat, ANIMAL-based Paleo diet will be a win-win for your body.

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Family

US: Home birth on the rise by a dramatic 20 percent

Leanne Italie
San Francisco Chronicle
Tue, 05 Jul 2011 23:11 UTC
One mother chose home birth because it was cheaper than going to a hospital. Another gave birth at home because she has multiple sclerosis and feared unnecessary medical intervention. And some choose home births after cesarean sections with their first babies.

Whatever their motivation, all are among a striking trend: Home births increased 20 percent from 2004 to 2008, accounting for 28,357 of 4.2 million U.S. births, according to a study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released in May.

White women led the drive, with 1 in 98 having babies at home in 2008, compared to 1 in 357 black women and 1 in 500 Hispanic women.

Sherry Hopkins, a Las Vegas midwife, said the women whose home births she's attended include a pediatrician, an emergency room doctor and nurses. "We're definitely seeing well-educated and well-informed people who want to give birth at home," she said.

Robbie Davis-Floyd, a medical anthropologist at the University of Texas at Austin and researcher on global trends in childbirth, obstetrics and midwifery, said "at first, in the 1970s, it was largely a hippie, countercultural thing to give birth outside of the hospital. Over the years, as the formerly 'lay' midwives have become far more sophisticated, so has their clientele."
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Bell

Pollution Can Lead to Brain Damage and Depression Warn Scientists


The Independent
Tue, 05 Jul 2011 20:06 UTC
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© The IndependentMist and pollution hanging over the City of London
Long term exposure to air pollution could damage the brain and lead to learning and memory problems and even depression, new research has revealed.

The tests on mice showed that in the long term dirty air could cause actual physical changes to the brain which in turn had negative effects.

While other studies have looked at the impact polluted air has on the heart and lungs this is one of the first to look at the effect on the brain, lead author Laura Fonken noted. She said:
"The results suggest prolonged exposure to polluted air can have visible, negative effects on the brain, which can lead to a variety of health problems.

"This could have important and troubling implications for people who live and work in polluted urban areas around the world."
Ms Fonken, a doctoral student, and her colleagues at Ohio State University exposed mice to either filtered air of polluted air six hours a day, five days a week for almost half their lifespan which was 10 months.
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Sherlock

Perfluorochemicals Linked With Impulsivity in Children

Charlie Schmidt
Chemical & Engineering News
Wed, 29 Jun 2011 18:38 UTC
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© ShutterstockChemical Triggers? Ubiquitous in commercial products, perfluorochemicals may set the stage for attention issues in children.
Industrial Pollutants: Scientists find that high blood levels correlate with a core feature of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Children's exposure to a growing list of industrial chemicals, including certain pesticides and phthalates, has been linked to development of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Now evidence suggests that perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs) boost ADHD risks by making children prone to impulsive behavior (Environ. Sci. Technol., DOI: 10.1021/es103712g).

Used since the 1950s to make Teflon and many other stain- and water-repellent products, PFCs are now global contaminants. Scientists had already associated elevated PFCs with neurological problems, such as delayed gross motor development. A study published in December found tantalizing links between blood PFC levels and diagnoses of ADHD (Environ. Health Perspect., DOI: 10.1289/ehp.1001898). Brooks Gump, a psychologist at Syracuse University, wanted to go one step further: He and his colleagues were interested in how the chemicals might affect impulsivity, a core ADHD feature. Impulsivity has cascading effects on so-called "executive functions," such as planning, verbal regulation, and motor control. ADHD is a complex and multi-faceted diagnosis, Gump notes, that results from deficits in executive functioning. By identifying any influence that PFCs have on impulsivity, Gump hoped to connect the dots between chemical exposure, nervous system effects, and processes leading to ADHD.

Comment: For more information on Common Chemicals Linked To ADHD read the following articles:

Everyday Chemicals May Be Harming Kids
U.S. Study: Pesticides Tied to ADHD in Children
Chemicals in non-stick pans may retard babies' growth
ADHD and Oppositional Defiant Disorder Linked to Phthalate Exposure of Mother
New Warning About Everyday Poison Linked to Alzheimer's, ADHD, and Autism

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Display

Study Reveals Office Workers are Exposed to Banned Toxins


The Independent
Fri, 01 Jul 2011 15:35 UTC
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© Forster Forest/shutterstock.com
A new US study published June 30 suggests the surfaces in your office could be covered in a coating of toxic dust.

Researchers discovered concentrations of a banned flame retardant called polybrominated dipheny ether (PBDE) on the hands of workers who spent at least 20 hours a week in an office. The study evaluated 31 offices in Boston, Massachusetts, and researchers noted that the amount of PBDE on workers' hands was linked to how much was measured in their blood.

PBDEs were once widely used in computers and other electronics as well as the polyurethane foam padding in office chairs, furniture, and carpeting, so the chemicals are lurking in a lot of offices, even though they are now banned under the Stockholm Convention, a treaty to control and phase out major pollutants.
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Pills

Big Pharma's Latest Shady Ploy to Sell Depression Drugs That People May Not Need

Martha Rosenberg
Alternet
Mon, 04 Jul 2011 15:00 UTC
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© Alternet
The drug industry is coming up with ever more clever ways to pump Americans full of drugs they may not need - and that may not even work.

The discovery that many people with life problems or occasional bad moods would willingly dose themselves with antidepressants sailed the drug industry through the 2000s. A good chunk of the $4.5 billion a year direct-to-consumer advertising has been devoted to convincing people they don't have problems with their job, the economy and their family, they have depression. Especially because depression can't be diagnosed from a blood test.

Unfortunately, three things dried up the depression gravy train for the drug industry. Blockbusters went off patent and generics took off, antidepressants were linked with gory and unpredictable violence, especially in young users and - they didn't even work, according to medical articles!
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Life Preserver

Pacific Ocean Study Finds Fish Tainted by Plastic

Tony Barboza
LA Times
Thu, 30 Jun 2011 15:38 UTC
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© J. LeichterTwo lanternfish and several bits of plastic collected in 2009 during the Scripps Environmental Accumulation of Plastic Expedition.
Southern California researchers found plastic in nearly 1 in 10 small fish collected in the northern Pacific Ocean in the latest study to call attention to floating marine debris entering the food chain.

The study published this week by scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego estimated that fish in the northern Pacific Ocean are ingesting as much as 24,000 tons of plastic each year.

Although the research found a lower percentage of affected fish than previous studies, it is the latest to quantify how many fish are eating marine garbage - most of it confetti-sized flecks of discarded plastic - that has accumulated in vast, slow-moving ocean currents known as gyres.

The results came from a 2009 voyage a group of graduate students made to the so-called Pacific garbage patch, an area of high concentration of fragments of floating garbage about 1,000 miles off the California coast. Researchers cast nets into the water and collected 141 fish, mostly lanternfish measuring just a few inches, and took them to a laboratory in San Diego to dissect.
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Cheeseburger

Council spends £100,000 on 'McPath' to help Bridgend pupils get safely from school to the nearest McDonald's


Daily Mail
Tue, 05 Jul 2011 06:22 UTC
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The head and governors of Brynteg Comprehensive School in Bridgend, South Wales, gave their backing to council plans for the new footpath
It's unlikely to impress Jamie Oliver. Far from discouraging pupils from a junk food diet, a council is making it even easier to indulge - by spending £100,000 on a footpath from their school gate to McDonald's.

Every lunchtime 200 pupils shun school meals to walk along the grass verge of a busy road to the burger bar.

A footpath, already being nicknamed the 'McPath', is being built to make the half-mile walk safer - and the school's head and governors are supporting it.

The decision is likely to infuriate campaigners, most notably TV chef Oliver, who have pushed for healthier school meals.

But council chiefs said they couldn't stop children eating burgers and needed to protect them along the busy A48
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Attention

Canada: Concerns About Niagara Hospitals Grow as C. Difficile Death Toll Rises to 16

Mark Brownlee
The Globe and Mail
Mon, 04 Jul 2011 09:57 UTC
C. Difficile
© unknownC. Difficile
A chorus of concern about the management of a number of hospitals in Ontario's Niagara region is growing amidst an outbreak of Clostridium difficile that's been linked to the deaths of 16 patients.

The patients were being treated at three hospitals experiencing clusters of cases of the bacterial disease: four have died at the Greater Niagara General Hospital, 10 at St. Catharines General Hospital and two at the Welland Hospital since the outbreak was declared May 28.

The three centres are run by the Niagara Health System, a network of seven hospitals serving 434,000 people around Niagara Falls and St. Catharines.

Protesters will hold a rally outside the Greater Niagara General Hospital on Wednesday to voice their displeasure with the way the hospitals are being run.

Organizers said the outbreak of the disease, which causes severe diarrhea in certain vulnerable patients as a result of taking antibiotics, is just the latest example of how the network has mismanaged the hospitals.

"We believe the NHS has been ignoring the crisis in health care for a while and I think this particular issue, the C. difficile, was the thing that had our council say, 'We've had enough,'" said Niagara City Councillor Wayne Gates.

The Niagara Health System took too long to alert the public about the health concerns arising from C. difficile, Mr. Gates said, noting that health officials first learned about the outbreak May 12, but didn't alert the public until more than a month later.

This comes after the closing of emergency departments in two hospitals in the area.
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Attention

Fluoridated Water - The Ultimate Evil

Dr. Mark Sircus
Dr. Sircus' Blog
Wed, 27 Oct 2010 15:38 UTC
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© extremelifechanger.com
Water actually is a battleground between good and evil and we see this in the fluoridation issue. One cannot understand the universe of water without grappling with poisonous fluoride and its government-mandated entry into public water supplies in the United States, Brazil, and several other countries that have stupidly followed America's lead in water fluoridation. Just because it's invisible does not make it any less deadly in the long haul in terms of public health. I had to say that because most people in fluoridated countries just don't mind that it is there; it's simply off their radar screens. And in fact, when you go back to the history and beginning of water fluoridation, we find out that it was the Nazis who used it first to turn their prisoners of war into passive sheep.
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