Health & WellnessS


Attention

Drug Waste Harms Fish

Natasha Gilbert
Nature
Mon, 15 Aug 2011 15:03 UTC
Contaminated Fishes
© D. GonseauGudgeon downstream of a wastewater-processing plant had swollen abdomens and other abnormalities.

Consumers who flush unwanted contraceptives down the drain have long been blamed for giving fish more than their fair share of sex organs. Drugs excreted by patients can also taint rivers, even after passing through wastewater-processing facilities.

But evidence is accumulating that the effluent coming from pharmaceutical factories could also be carrying drugs into rivers. Many ecotoxicologists had assumed that water-quality standards, along with companies' desire to avoid wasting valuable pharmaceuticals, would minimize the extent of bioactive compounds released by factories into wastewater, and ultimately into rivers.

A string of studies suggest otherwise. In 2009, for example, researchers1,2 reported very high levels of pharmaceutical ingredients in treated effluent coming from a plant that processes wastewater from factories near Hyderabad, India. The following year, a similar discovery was made at two wastewater-treatment plants in New York, both of which received discharges from drug-production plants.3

Now, researchers have provided the first evidence of similar problems in Europe,4 and have linked it to sex disruption in wild fish populations found in the Dore River in France. "People thought this could not happen in a country that has high environmental standards and good manufacturing practices," says Patrick Phillips, head of the National Water-Quality Assessment Program at the US Geological Survey in Troy, New York, and lead author of the US study. "The evidence from the United States and now from France shows that this is not the case."
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Question

Can The Spanish Flu Devastate Us Again?


redOrbit
Mon, 15 Aug 2011 09:24 UTC
Spanish Flu
© redOrbit

TAU researchers work to determine how H1N1 becomes pandemic.

The last century has seen two major pandemics caused by the H1N1 virus - the Spanish Flu in 1918 and 2009's Swine Flu scare, which had thousands travelling with surgical masks and clamoring for vaccination. But scientists did not know what distinguished the Swine Flu from ordinary influenza in pigs or seasonal outbreaks in humans, giving it the power to travel extensively and infect large populations.

Until now. Prof. Nir Ben-Tal of Tel Aviv University's Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and his graduate student Daphna Meroz, in collaboration with Dr. Tomer Hertz of Seattle's Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, have developed a unique computational method to address this question. Published in the journal PNAS, the research presents a valuable tool for identifying viral mutation strategies, tracking various virus strains and developing vaccinations and anti-virals which can protect the population. It may also lead to more precisely designed vaccines to combat these viral mutations.

Their method reveals that mutations in the virus' amino acids in specific positions, such as antigenic receptor sites, may explain how the new strain successfully spread throughout the population in 2009. These alterations allowed the strain to evade both existing vaccines and the immune system's defenses.
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Health

US: Fecal Matter Found In 8 Out Of 9 Restaurant Play Areas


redOrbit
Mon, 15 Aug 2011 13:49 UTC
Play Areas
© redOrbit

A report by ABC's Good Morning America found that play areas at fast food restaurants may be harboring harmful germs and bacteria.

The report said a mother who is trying to get standards in place for how restaurant play areas should be cleaned helped make the discovery.

Erin Carr-Jordan, the mother who performed the research, said she found clumps of hair, rotting food and gang graffiti, among other things, when she followed her toddler into a play tube at a fast-food restaurant play area.

"It was like getting hit with a brick, it was so disgusting," she told ABC's Good Morning America. "There was filth everywhere, there was black on the walls and it was sticky and there was grime inside the connecting tubes."

Carr-Jordan said she felt restaurant managers were not responsive to her complaints so she felt compelled to start taking video cameras with her to post what she had found on YouTube.

She also spent several thousand dollars of her own money on testing samples at nine restaurants in seven states from restaurants like McDonald's, Burger King, and Chuck E. Cheese's.
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Cow

US: Tainted Beef Leads to Grocery Recalls


The Associated Press
Sun, 14 Aug 2011 00:00 UTC
Image
© Flickr/benfrantzdaleThe USDA has called back more than 60,000 pounds of ground beef products believed to be contaminated with E. coli from the National Beef Packing Co. LLC.
At least three major grocery store chains have recalled some of their ground beef packages because they could be contaminated with E. coli bacteria.

Winn-Dixie Stores Inc., Publix Super Markets Inc. and Kroger Co. announced the recalls mainly in the southeastern U.S. and said they stem from problems at the National Beef Packaging Co. of Dodge City, Kan.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Friday that National Beef was recalling more than 60,000 pounds of beef after the Ohio Department of Agriculture found the bacteria during routine testing.

The recalls affect products sold mainly in Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, South Carolina and Tennessee, but the meat was sent to several distributors and could have been repackaged for consumers and sold nationwide.

The agriculture department says there have been no reports of illnesses. A spokesman for National Beef said the company has never had a problem with E. coli. It is checking processes and procedures in an effort to find the cause and prevent it from happening again, the spokesman said.
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Light Saber

Challenging the Theory of Artificial Immunity

Keith Wassung
Alignlife.com
Wed, 20 Jul 2011 20:55 UTC
Image
© Alignlife.com
The control and eradication of childhood disease has been heralded as one of medicine's finest accomplishments. Yet there is a growing suspicion that intervening in infections may have an adverse effect on children, exemplified by the fact that as childhood infections have decreased, chronic afflictions have increased. This comes along with a swell of complaints from groups and individuals about the side effects of vaccines and the lack of long-term scientific studies and safety data. At a time when there are more than 200 vaccines in the pipeline, concern is mounting that high-profile vaccine advocates and the lobbies they represent are exerting inordinate influence on the setting of vaccine policy by the government.

It may seem incredulous to challenge the practice of vaccination, since it has claimed responsibility for the eradication of many diseases in the past 100 years including polio, smallpox, whooping cough and diphtheria. But these claims are largely based on epidemic studies rather than on clinical evidence of effectiveness. Europe for example, experienced the same rise and decline of polio cases as were seen in the U.S. yet never had the polio vaccine. In addition, many diseases that were once thought to be eradicated simply take on different forms and are given different names. Spinal meningitis and polio have almost identical symptoms and cases of spinal meningitis have increased since the decrease in polio cases.
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Target

New Dietary Ingredient Draft Guidance is a Big, Fat Gift to Big Pharma


Alliance for Natural Health
Tue, 02 Aug 2011 17:25 UTC
Image
© Alliance for Natural Health
Want to let the drug industry take your favorite supplements off the market, patent them, and sell them back to you - by doctor's prescription only - for 10 or 100 (or even more) times what you're paying now?

As Big Pharma becomes more desperate to boost flagging profits, the industry will likely use this tactic to find new sources of revenue - and shame on the FDA for so blatantly aiding and abetting it!

This coming year, seven of the world's twenty bestselling drugs will lose their patent protection and can be sold in generic forms. On this list are the top two money-makers ever created: cholesterol fighting (but overall health-threatening) Lipitor and blood thinning (but bone-destroying) Plavix. This wave of expiring drugs patents will have unprecedented and devastating effects on the industry bottom line. One drug recently made available in generic form - Protonix, a medication for severe heartburn (again, not a drug we would use, and especially dangerous when used with the blood-thinner mentioned above) - previously cost about $170 per month when it was still under patent; its generic version now costs $16. With seven of the top-selling drugs expected to see similarly drastic drops in prices, the drug industry is in a panic - especially considering the fact that there are no new "blockbuster" drugs in the pharmaceutical industry pipeline. Under these circumstances, why not try to turn some supplements into drugs?
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Clock

The Importance of Melatonin


bewellbuzz.com
Mon, 08 Aug 2011 00:39 UTC
Image
© bewellbuzz.com
Melatonin is a natural hormone produced by the pineal gland. It is the hormone responsible for the regulation of our internal body clock which is also referred to as the "circadian rhythm". The production of melatonin is influenced by the amount of light in the external environment. Darkness stimulates the production of melatonin while brightness produces the opposite effect.

Aside from the regulation of our biological clock, melatonin also aids in the regulation of other body hormones. In females, it regulates the timing of the releases of reproductive hormones which helps set the pattern of the menstrual cycle.
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Info

Going Organic Cuts Poultry Farms' "Superbug" Bacteria in Single Generation

Katherine Harmon
Scientific American
Fri, 12 Aug 2011 14:01 UTC
Poultry Farms
© Amy Sapkota / University of Maryland

The government has come under fire this week for revelations that it knew about antibiotic resistant Salmonella in poultry products that has killed at least one person and sickened more than 100 across the country. Although this is one of the largest turkey recalls - affecting some 36 million pounds of ground turkey - the prevalence of bacteria that is immune to common drugs is on the rise on animal farms, which is where the bulk of U.S. antibiotics get used.

But by going organic, poultry farms can cut the amount of antibiotic resistant bacteria in a single generation by nearly five times, according to a new study published online this week in Environmental Health Perspectives.

"We were surprised to see that the differences were so significant across several different classes of antibiotics even in the very first flock that was produced after the transition to organic standards," Amy Sapkota, of the University of Maryland School of Public Health, and co-author of the new study, said in a prepared statement.
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Arrow Up

Latest Research Debunks The Saturated Fat Diet Myths

Dr. John Briffa
The Cholesterol Truth
Mon, 08 Aug 2011 13:35 UTC
Image
© jimmysmithtraining.comThe truth about saturated fat is that we need it for energy production.
I regularly lecture in front of groups, and I'm usually emphasizing the value of good nutrition and what this actually means. I believe in eating a natural, unprocessed diet comprised mainly of foods that have been in the human diet the longest including meat (yes, even red meat), fish, eggs, nuts, fruits and vegetables. We've become, generally, fat-phobic over the last 30 years, particularly with regards to saturated fat. The fact that I advocate a diet that is richer in saturated fat than is traditionally advised can look somewhat out of step with conventional 'wisdom'.

One thing that practically everyone seems to know about saturated fat is that is raises cholesterol levels. My reaction to this is, so what? This attitude may sound blasé, but it's actually based on a fundamental principle: the impact a foodstuff has on cholesterol is not the important thing, it's the impact it has on health that counts.

Our focus on cholesterol levels has allowed many drugs and food products to be marketed on the basis of their cholesterol-reducing properties, in the absence of any evidence that they actually, say, reduce the risk of heart disease or death. Classic examples of this include foods laced with cholesterol-reducing compounds known as 'sterols', and the drug ezetimibe. I've written about both of these things more than once on this site.

Comment: For a more in depth look at the benefits of saturated fat read the following articles:

Saturated Fat is Good for You
7 Reasons to Eat More Saturated Fat
Enjoy Saturated Fats, They're Good for You!
Wrongly Convicted? The Case for Saturated Fat
You've Been Living A Lie: The Story Of Saturated Fat And Cholesterol
A Big Fat Mistake
Higher saturated fat intakes found to be associated with a reduced risk of dying from cardiovascular disease

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Cow

Are You a Fat Burner or a Sugar Burner?

Nora T. Gedgaudas, CNS, CNT
Primal Body Primal Mind
Sat, 13 Aug 2011 12:56 UTC
evil sugar diabetes
© UnknownSugar is highly addictive drug that create cravings, tolerance and withdrawal symptoms.
One of the most common complaints one hears about from friends and family these days is not having enough energy. Energy drinks, bars and supplements, not to mention the ubiquitous presence of coffee shops on almost every corner in every city are a testament to these complaints and they are also BIG business. Of course, when it comes to so-called "energy drinks" and caffeine we're not talking about generating real lasting energy so much as we are talking about adding a jolt to the system in the form of a stimulant that provides the short-lived illusion of energy. That said, one thing virtually all these products has in common is that they can dramatically spike your blood sugar levels.

So...that's a good thing, right?

Wellllllll...

Anyone who takes a conventional course in nutrition, medical school, nursing school or any chiropractic or naturopathic school today will likely be taught that their brain, tissues and organs greatly depend upon sufficient blood sugar to fuel energy, maintain their day to day energy supply and fuel all their metabolic processes. We are taught that "blood sugar" is important - critical, even - and that it must be sustained and regularly managed for optimal health. Unfortunately, this is only a conditional truth at best and one that conceals a rather mammoth sin of omission that is overlooked by nearly everyone. The fact is that we are all one of two things: we are either a "sugar burner" or we are a "fat burner". Perhaps since fat is (erroneously) assumed to be inherently evil, nothing about its potentially vital role in all aspects of health or primary energy production is ever discussed. We are encouraged to avoid it at any cost and not ask any questions.

Blood sugar management is big business, too. VERY big business.
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