Health & WellnessS


Attention

Almost 10,000 people infected with dengue fever in Pakistan


RIA Novosti
Sun, 25 Sep 2011 03:40 UTC
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© AFP/ Arif AliAlmost 10,000 people infected with dengue fever in Pakistan
A team of World Health Organization (WHO) is arriving on Sunday in Pakistan to help cope with dengue fever that has affected almost 10,000 people in the country, the Pakistani news agency INN reported, referring to official sources.

In recent weeks, dengue fever has rapidly spread across Pakistan but the country's north-eastern Punjab province has been the worst hit by the virus, with over 8,700 infections registered in the provincial capital Lahore.

Dengue fever has already claimed 104 lives in Pakistan.

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© AFP/ Arif AliAlmost 10,000 people infected with dengue fever in Pakistan
The WHO team will give suggestions to contain and eradicate the outbreak of dengue fever and will also provide health tips to medical practitioners for the treatment of the dengue virus. The experts will also visit the affected areas, INN reported.
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Arrow Down

Surgeons Won't Have to Make Sure a Heart has Stopped Beating Before Harvesting Organs


The Daily Mail
Thu, 22 Sep 2011 22:57 UTC
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Rush for organs: Surgeons would not have to wait to see if a donor's heart starts beating again before harvesting organs if new proposals go ahead
Surgeons retrieving organs to be transplanted just after a patient's heart has stopped beating will no longer have to wait to make sure it doesn't start up again if new proposals are adopted.

At present when doctors are retrieving organs they have to wait at least two minutes to ensure it doesn't spontaneously start again.

Critics now fear seriously ill patients could be viewed more like tissue banks than sick people if the plans to change rules about organ donation go ahead.
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Question

California, US: Mysterious Rash Cause Eludes Officials

Stacie Chan
Redwood City Patch
Fri, 23 Sep 2011 16:22 UTC
The district has been following health procedures; Clifford Elementary parents want more communication.

After doctors' reports, entomologist visits, specialized dogs sniffing for bedbugs and a thorough cleaning and disinfection of Clifford Elementary School, district officials still cannot identify the cause of what sent home dozens of kindergartners a week ago with a rash that highly resembled multiple bug bites.

Last Wednesday on Sept. 14, school officials called the district with reports of eight children with bug bites, and the number escalated to 30-35 the following day, according to district spokeswoman Naomi Hunter.

"It looked like my son rolled around in a flea's nest," said kindergarten parent Niki Kolokithas of the dozens of bites that covered her son's torso and arms.

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© Redwood City School District Students met with "Curly" the bedbug sniffing dog and learned how he performed his duties.
"We've never seen anything like this," said Don Diaz of the Redwood City School District's Facilities and Maintenance Department. "We've always been able to identify the bug and do the proper protocol."
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Syringe

New Vaccine Revelation - The Neurotoxin Far Worse than Mercury..Aluminum

Dr. Mercola
Mercola.com
Thu, 22 Sep 2011 21:32 UTC

When it comes to vaccine safety, much of the talk about toxic ingredients focuses on thimerosal (contains mercury) that is added to killed (inactivated) vaccines as a preservative. But vaccines also contain adjuvants -- agents that stimulate your immune system to greatly increase immunologic response to the vaccine - and one of the most toxic is aluminum. Aluminum is a known neurotoxin that is contained in a number of common childhood and adult vaccines and may even exceed the toxicity of mercury in the human body.

According to a new study published in Current Medical Chemistry, children up to 6 months of age receive 14.7 to 49 times more aluminum from vaccines than the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) safety limits allow.
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Ambulance

Research: Traffic Fumes Can Trigger Heart Attacks

Denis Campbell
The Guardian
Tue, 20 Sep 2011 17:30 UTC
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© David Sillitoe for the GuardianResearchers say traffic fumes can increase the risk of a heart attack for up to six hours after exposure.
Study published in the British Medical Journal identifies pollutant particles and nitrogen dioxide as main culprits

Breathing in large amounts of traffic fumes can trigger a heart attack up to six hours after exposure, according to research which reaffirms the health risks associated with pollution.

The study, in the British Medical Journal, found that high levels of pollution can increase the risk of suffering a heart attack. It identifies exposure to pollutant particles and nitrogen dioxide expelled by cars, which are both markers of contaminated urban atmospheres, as the main culprits.

The authors quantify the risk as small - up to 1.3% higher risk of a heart attack up to six hours after exposure to those substances. But they say that getting enough of those two substances into the lungs can bring forward by a few hours a heart attack that would have happened anyway. This is called short-term displacement or the "harvesting" effect of pollution.
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Cow Skull

Real Food Is Not Fungible: How Commoditization Eliminates Nutrition, Impoverishes Farmers, and Destroys The Earth


gnolls.org
Thu, 22 Sep 2011 14:11 UTC
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© erasundar.wordpress.com
This article should, by rights, be an entire book: the consequences of agricultural commoditization are profound and far-reaching. By necessity, I am concentrating on a few key points.

Where's The Real Food?

One of the largest movements in 20th century agriculture was the commoditization of food.

In 1900, 41% of the US workforce was directly employed in agriculture, and each farm produced over five different crops for sale - not counting food consumed on the farm or sold locally, outside the commodity system. Furthermore, 60% of Americans lived in rural areas. (Source: USDA.) This means that the majority of Americans either grew their own food, or had direct access to the producers of the food they ate.

In 2000, just 1.9% of Americans were employed in agriculture, farms produced an average of just over one crop for sale, and less than 1 out of 4 Americans lived in rural areas. The number of farms has fallen 63%, while the average farm size has risen 67%.

In other words, we no longer have direct access to the food we eat. How did this happen?

As usual, the answer is simple: follow the money.

Comment: To learn more about the 'commoditization of food' and agriculture's negative effects on our plant read the following article and watch the excellent video: Lierre Keith on 'The Vegetarian Myth - Food, Justice and Sustainability'

The Vegetarian Myth
We've been told that a vegetarian diet can feed the hungry, honor the animals, and save the planet. Lierre Keith believed in that plant-based diet and spent twenty years as a vegan. But in The Vegetarian Myth, she argues that we've been led astray--not by our longings for a just and sustainable world, but by our ignorance.

The truth is that agriculture is a relentless assault against the planet, and more of the same won't save us. In service to annual grains, humans have devastated prairies and forests, driven countless species extinct, altered the climate, and destroyed the topsoil--the basis of life itself. Keith argues that if we are to save this planet, our food must be an act of profound and abiding repair: it must come from inside living communities, not be imposed across them.

Part memoir, part nutritional primer, and part political manifesto, The Vegetarian Myth will challenge everything you thought you knew about food politics.


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Pills

Drug Deaths Overtake Car Fatalities

Jonathan Galland
pilladvised.com
Thu, 22 Sep 2011 13:56 UTC
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© pilladvised.com
What is in your medicine cabinet could be more dangerous than what is in your driveway.

That's the takeaway from a new report on the growing epidemic of prescription drug abuse from the Los Angeles Times. Drug deaths have doubled within a decade, while traffic fatalities have declined.

According to preliminary data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) drugs killed at least 37,485 people nationwide in 2009.

See the interactive map: Rise in drug-induced deaths since 2000
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Bulb

Better Food, Better Mood: How Our Diet Affects the Way We Feel


livingthenourishedlife.com
Fri, 19 Aug 2011 13:44 UTC
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© livingthenourishedlife.comFeeling low? Maybe it was your breakfast...
Ever feel like you were hit by a truck after eating too much junk food? I think most of us are familiar with the "oh-man-I-shouldn't-have-eaten-that" feeling. But food doesn't just have a short-term impact on the way we feel. A deficient diet can lead to more chronic health problems like depression, emotional instability, and destructive behavior

Maybe you've had personal experience with this. I know I have. I can honestly say I became a different person after changing my diet--just from changing the way I eat.

I didn't have to take anti-depressants, birth control pills or go to countless therapy sessions. And I didn't have to do anything drastic like move to the beach or quit my job (in fact, I was able to start working more after improving my diet!). All I had to do was change the way I was feeding my body.

Comment: To learn more about how food effects moods read the Diet and Health section on the forum. In particular read the thread Life without Bread.

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Beaker

Even BPA-Free Plastics Leach Harmful Chemicals

Anthony Gucciardi
Activist Post
Wed, 21 Sep 2011 00:33 UTC
plastic bottles
© n/a
Bisphenol A (BPA) is a known endocrine-disrupting hormone mimicker, present in a large majority of plastic products and even canned goods. But what about plastics that don't contain BPA? A new study has found that even products that claim to be BPA-free oftentimes still leach endocrine-disrupting chemicals. In fact, the study found that 70% of common plastic products were tested positive for estrogenic activity, and the number skyrocketed to 95% when the products were put through real world conditions such as microwaving or dishwashing.

The study shows that even products labeled "BPA-free" still pose a threat to human health, and many contain phthalates, also known as "plasticizers."

Phthalates are a group of industrial chemicals used in the production of plastics such as polyvinyl chloride (PVC). Used to make the plastics more flexible and resilient, phthalates are also found in many cosmetic products and plastic containers. Two studies published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives in 2003 found that pregnant women exposed to phthalates were at an increased risk of pregnancy complications, as the chemicals negatively affect the development of the fetus in unknown ways.
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Pills

Prozac in Lakes is an Antimicrobe. In Sea Bays, It Makes Shrimp Reckless.


Gaia Health Blog
Wed, 21 Sep 2011 00:00 UTC
E. coli by Toxyna
© DeviantArt.comE. coli by Toxyna
National Geographic reports that Prozac is killing off microbes in the Great Lakes. That sounds good, in a sense. It means that all the E. coli from factory farms may be getting poisoned by Prozac. But what about all the bacteria that's naturally part of the ecosystem?

Then, there's the question of what it must be doing to the gut biota of people who take the drug! We now have evidence that antibiotics permanently change gut biota and that they lead to cancer. So, if Prozac kills microbes at hugely diluted doses in lakes, what must it be doing to the natural balance of the intestinal tract?

The amount of Prozac found in Lake Erie is a mere nanogram per liter. If a drug sold as an antibiotic had that sort of effect, Big Pharma would be screaming it from every rooftop. When do you suppose they'll get the message and start rebranding Prozac as an antibiotic?
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