Health & WellnessS


Pills

Over-Prescribed: How Taking Too Many Pills is Hurting Americans

Cory Franklin
Alternet
Wed, 22 Jun 2011 19:15 UTC
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© blogs.wsj.com
Aggressive marketing pushes drugs on patients well beyond clinical usefulness, and it's thinning their wallets and threatening their health.

"If all the drugs were thrown in the ocean, everyone would be better-off...except for the fish." - Oliver Wendell Holmes

That maxim of 19th-century American physician and author Oliver Wendell Holmes is an overstatement today, but still contains a grain of wisdom. For generations of physicians, the prevailing teaching was not to prescribe too many drugs in order to avoid unwanted side-effects and drug interactions. No longer.

Even considering remarkable technological advances - organ transplants, robotic surgeries, lasers, electronic medical records - the greatest difference in American medicine since the 1970's is the increase in the number of medications prescribed to patients today. To treat chronic diseases and control symptoms, the average American takes about 12 medications annually, compared to seven, 20 years ago. Patients who once came into the office carrying their medications in a purse, or pocket, now need a shopping bag.

Comment: To learn more about how American's are over-prescribed while Big Pharma gets rich read the following articles:

100,000 Americans Die Each Year from Prescription Drugs, While Pharma Companies Get Rich

The Silent Epidemic - Legal Prescription Drug Abuse

Prescription Drugs Kill 300 Percent More Americans than Illegal Drugs

Prescription drug deaths skyrocket 68 percent over five years as Americans swallow more pills

The Other Drug Cartel...
Many legislators in Congress still do not get it! The largest contributing factor in the outrageous cost of prescription drugs is advertising and promotion, estimated to be about 37% of the price we pay for those drugs. More money is spent on lobbying, advertising and promotion by the pharmaceutical industry than is spent on research and development.


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Bell

Low-calorie diet offers hope of cure for type 2 diabetes

Sarah Boseley
The Guardian, UK
Fri, 24 Jun 2011 06:15 UTC
food,salas
© GettyScientists at Newcastle University claim a low calorie diet can cure type 2 diabetes
British study finds two-month extreme diet can cure type 2 diabetes and overturns assumptions about 'lifelong' condition

People who have had obesity-related type 2 diabetes for years have been cured, at least temporarily, by keeping to an extreme, low-calorie, diet for two months, scientists report today.

The discovery, reported by scientists at Newcastle University, overturns previous assumptions about type 2 diabetes, which was thought to be a lifelong illness.

In the UK about two and a half million people have been diagnosed with diabetes, the large majority with type 2, and numbers are rising across much of the world. The condition has to be controlled with drugs and eventually insulin injections. It can cause blindness and end in foot amputation, as well as shortening life.

The results of the Newcastle investigation, though the study was small, demonstrated that full recovery was possible, not through drugs but through diet.
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Health

The "Cancer-Causing Convenience" All Women Should Avoid

Dr. Mercola
Articles.mercola.com
Wed, 29 Jun 2011 05:45 UTC
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© iStockphoto/Thinkstock
Human and animal studies show that a group of genes called the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) can influence odor. In general, females prefer the odor of mates with a dissimilar MHC -- but this effect is reversed in women on oral contraceptive pills.

A study found that that single women preferred the odor of MHC-similar men, but women in relationships preferred the opposite. This means that that the use of contraceptive pills could influence mate preference.

According to FYI Living:
"The women on pills preferred men with similar MHC genes. Studies indicate that, 'women consider the olfactory domain to be an important factor in their assessment of potential partners.' Thus, due to serious alterations in odor preference, the use of oral pills could influence partner choice."
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Nuke

Japan: Fukushima residents' urine now radioactive

Kyodo
The Japan Times
Mon, 27 Jun 2011 21:15 UTC
More than 3 millisieverts of radiation has been measured in the urine of 15 Fukushima residents of the village of Iitate and the town of Kawamata, confirming internal radiation exposure, it was learned Sunday.

Both are about 30 to 40 km from the Fukushima No. 1 power plant, which has been releasing radioactive material into the environment since the week of March 11, when the quake and tsunami caused core meltdowns.

"This won't be a problem if they don't eat vegetables or other products that are contaminated," said Nanao Kamada, professor emeritus of radiation biology at Hiroshima University. "But it will be difficult for people to continue living in these areas."
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Sherlock

Study Says: Tot Can't Sleep? Turn Off Nighttime TV

Lindsey Tanner
Huffington Post
Mon, 27 Jun 2011 18:13 UTC
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© ronjoewhite.blogspot.com
If your preschooler can't sleep - turn off the violence and nighttime TV.

That's the message in a new study that found sleep problems are more common in 3- to 5-year-olds who watch television after 7 p.m. Watching shows with violence - including kids' cartoons - also was tied to sleeping difficulties.

Watching nonviolent shows during the day didn't seem to have any connection with sleep problems in the 617 youngsters studied.

The study builds on previous research linking media use with kids' sleep problems, and also bolsters arguments for limiting children's screen time.
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Bacon

SOTT Focus: Everything About Fat

Doug DiPasquale
Sott.net
Tue, 28 Jun 2011 16:11 UTC
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Probably More Than You Ever Wanted to Know About Fat and Thought You Already Knew, But Didn't

Ideas seem to have a way of ingraining themselves in mass consciousness such that it is difficult, if not impossible, to uproot them. Get enough people behind an idea and the idea becomes "truth", even if it has no basis in objective reality. Like some kind of weed that grows in the gardens of people's imaginations, ideas, even if they're wrong, can be quite persistent. Gardeners of truth may work hard in the garden of the mind to remove these weeds, yet their deep roots may often evade the well-intentioned gardener. Tireless efforts often seem successful, only for the same tired idea to poke its head up through the undergrowth once more. This brings the stark realization that the weed was never gone at all, but its roots were merely hidden from view, growing ever more expansive beneath the surface.

After nearly a century of the 'fat is evil' weed, gardeners of truth may finally be making some headway in the garden of the collective mind. Since the inception of the 'lipid hypothesis', researchers, nutritionists and journalists alike have been pulling up this weed, exposing the logical inconsistencies of tying natural fats to disease.
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Attention

India: Mystery fever toll climbs to 46 in Bihar


The Hindu
Tue, 28 Jun 2011 08:44 UTC
The fatal 'mystery fever' on Tuesday claimed one more life in Bihar's Muzaffarpur district, taking the death toll to 46, even as ambiguity still prevails over the disease with scientists ruling out encephalitis.

Chief Medical Officer K P Singh said one more child died at Kejriwal hospital during the day.

Two more children were being treated at the Srikrishna Medical College Hospital and the Kejriwal hospital, he said.

A central team which visited the hospitals last week had initially diagnosed the disease as encephalitis and sent the blood samples to Pune's National Institute of Virology for further tests.
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Heart

Meditation Can Cut Heart Attacks by as Much as Half

Richard Alleyne
The Telegraph, UK
Mon, 27 Jun 2011 03:00 UTC
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© Getty ImagesTranscendental Meditation was popularised in the 1960s through the Beatles who learnt the technique through their guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
Transcendental meditation, the relaxation technique made famous by the Beatles, can cut heart attack and stroke death rates by up to 50%, new research has found.

The practice, which involves the continual repeating of a mantra, was found to reduce high blood pressure, cholesterol and thickening of the arteries. It is also protects against diabetes.

"This is a seminal finding," said Dr Norman Rosenthal of the American government's National Institute of Mental Health.

"The prevention of heart attack and stroke and actual lengthening of lifespan by an alternative

treatment method is exceedingly rare, if not unprecedented.

"If Transcendental Meditation were a drug conferring so many benefits, it would be a billion-dollar blockbuster."

Comment: For more information about an easy to use approach to Meditation check out the Éiriú Eolas Stress Control, Healing and Rejuvenation Program here.

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Info

Best of the Web: Gluten Then and Now

Julie McGinnis
Natural News
Mon, 27 Jun 2011 17:36 UTC
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© glutendoctors.blogspot.com
Over the past decade, the frequency of conversations about gluten intolerance (GI) and celiac disease (CD) in the United States has gone from almost unheard of to commonplace. Chances are your local supermarket sells dozens of items labeled "gluten free" where none existed five years ago. Restaurants and school lunch programs frequently offer gluten-free alternatives. What happened?

Before I dive into that discussion, I want to clarify some terms to minimize confusion. "Gluten" is the general term for a mixture of tiny protein fragments (called polypeptides), which are found in cereal grains such as wheat, rye, barley, spelt, faro, and kamut. Gluten is classified in two groups: prolamines and glutelins. The most troublesome component of gluten is the prolamine gliadin. Gliadin is the cause of the painful inflammation in gluten intolerance and instigates the immune response and intestinal damage found in celiac disease. Although both conditions have similar symptoms (pain, gas, bloating, diarrhea), or sometimes no gastrointestinal symptoms at all, celiac disease is an autoimmune reaction to gluten that can cause severe degradation of the small intestine; whereas, gluten intolerance/sensitivity is an inability to digest gliadin with no damage to the intestines.

Comment: For more information on Wheat and Gluten intolerance read the following articles:

The Dark Side of Wheat - New Perspectives on Celiac Disease and Wheat Intolerance
Opening Pandora's Bread Box: The Critical Role of Wheat Lectin in Human Disease
Gluten: What You Don't Know Might Kill You
Facts you might not know about gluten
Book Review: Gluten Toxicity - The Mysterious Symptoms of Celiac Disease, Dermatitis Herpetiformis, and Non-Celiac Gluten Intolerance
Can You Stomach Wheat? How Giving up Grain May Better Your Health
Just because someone doesn't have coeliac disease, doesn't mean they don't have a problem with gluten
Beyond Gluten-Free: The Critical Role of Chitin-Binding Lectins in Human Disease
Gluten Sensitivity and the Impact on the Brain

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Red Flag

Roundup: Birth Defects Caused By World's Top-Selling Weedkiller, Scientists Say

Lucia Graves
Common Dreams
Fri, 24 Jun 2011 16:22 UTC
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© Common Dreams
The chemical at the heart of the planet's most widely used herbicide - Roundup weedkiller, used in farms and gardens across the U.S. - is coming under more intense scrutiny following the release of a new report calling for a heightened regulatory response around its use.

Critics have argued for decades that glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup and other herbicides used around the globe, poses a serious threat to public health. Industry regulators, however, appear to have consistently overlooked their concerns.

A comprehensive review of existing data released this month by Earth Open Source, an organization that uses open-source collaboration to advance sustainable food production, suggests that industry regulators in Europe have known for years that glyphosate, originally introduced by American agricultural biotechnology giant Monsanto in 1976, causes birth defects in the embryos of laboratory animals.

Comment: Corporations like Monsanto Lies, Again (and Again and Again) about the safety of their toxic products. Read the following articles for more information about the truly evil and detrimental chemical Roundup and why agencies like the EPA are desperately trying to ignore and hide scientific studies that prove this chemical is highly toxic to human and environmental health:

Roundup Kills More Than Weeds
Death by Multiple Poisoning, Glyphosate and Roundup
Groundbreaking Study Shows Roundup Link to Birth Defects
Roundup weed killer kills human cells. Study intensifies debate over 'inert' ingredients

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