Health & WellnessS


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'Fake food': mislabelled drinks, meat and cheese found by West Yorkshire laboratory

Fake Food
© The Independent, UKThe public laboratory said it was concerned its findings were part of a larger national trend.
Shoppers are allegedly at risk of buying food "fake food," including ham on pizza that is "meat emulsion" or poultry, prawns that are 50 per cent water, and fruit juice containing additives not permitted in the EU.

The results found by a council laboratory in West Yorkshire and shown to the Guardian newspaper, claim to reveal that almost 40% of 900 food samples were not what they were advertised, or were mislabelled in some way.

The tests were part of a general surveillance programme by the local authority, and as part of checks focusing on products prone to being counterfeited.

Among the reported discoveries was herbal slimming tea containing neither tea nor herbs, but rather glucose powder mixed with prescription obesity medication at 13 times the normal dose; and beef mince that allegedly contained pork or poultry products.

The illegal additives claimed to have been found in juices included brominated vegetable oil, which is meant to be used as a flame retardant and is linked to behavioural problems in rats at high doses.

The experts told the newspaper that they are concerned the 900 samples were likely to be indicative of national trends at large, as budget cuts increase the risk that mislabelled or fake food will be left unidentified by council-run labs.

Black Cat 2

Bizarre "Tom and Jerry Syndrome" in the UK

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© Unknown.
In a bizarre development, cats throughout the U.K. are suddenly suffering seizures triggered by everyday household noises like rustling newspaper, the tapping of a boiled egg, or the click of a computer mouse.

Other noise-induced seizure triggers include popping pills out of blister packs, dropping metal items on tile floors or into ceramic bowls, hammering nails, and even cat owners slapping their foreheads or clicking their tongues.

Syringe

Vitamin C injections ease ovarian cancer treatments

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© Claudius Tesch/Wikimedia CommonsVitamin C may reduce chemotherapy side effects when given intravenously.
People with ovarian cancer who receive high-dose vitamin C injections are less likely to report toxic side effects from chemotherapy than people who had chemotherapy alone, according to the results of a small clinical trial.

The study, published today in Science Translational Medicine, was too small to assess whether the combination of chemotherapy and vitamin C combats cancer better than chemotherapy alone. But accompanying work in mice suggests that the two treatments could be complementary.

The results are the latest salvo in long-running controversy over the use of vitamin C against cancer. Early studies championed by Nobel-prizewinning chemist Linus Pauling in the 1970s suggested that vitamin C could help to fight tumors. But larger clinical trials failed to substantiate those claims.

Comment: Better still, ditch the chemotherapy, do some detoxing, and learn about the ketogenic paleo diet:

'Primal Body' transforms metabolism with gluten-free high fat ketogenic diet
The Ketogenic Diet - An Overview
Ketogenic Diet improves insulin sensitivity and numerous aging markers


Life Preserver

Russell Brand: My life without drugs

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© Mark Nolan/WireImage'I cannot accurately convey to you the efficiency of heroin in neutralizing pain.'

Russell Brand has not used drugs for 10 years. He has a job, a house, a cat, good friends. But temptation is never far away. He wants to help other addicts, but first he wants us to feel compassion for those affected
.

The last time I thought about taking heroin was yesterday. I had received "an inconvenient truth" from a beautiful woman. It wasn't about climate change - I'm not that ecologically switched on - she told me she was pregnant and it wasn't mine.

I had to take immediate action. I put Morrissey on in my car as an external conduit for the surging melancholy, and as I wound my way through the neurotic Hollywood hills, the narrow lanes and tight bends were a material echo of the synaptic tangle where my thoughts stalled and jammed.

Morrissey, as ever, conducted a symphony, within and without and the tidal misery burgeoned. I am becoming possessed. The part of me that experienced the negative data, the self, is becoming overwhelmed, I can no longer see where I end and the pain begins. So now I have a choice.

Comment: A Top Doc Explains Why Kind Love Beats Tough Love When Treating Addiction:
Dr. Gabor Mate is renowned in Canada for his work in treating people with the worst addictions, most notably at Vancouver's controversial Insite facility, which provides users with clean needles, medical support and a safe space to inject drugs.

Canada's Conservative government has tried to shut Insite down, but the country's Supreme Court ruled late last year that doing so would contravene human rights laws because the program has been shown to save lives.

In Mate's book In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction, which was a No. 1 bestseller in Canada, he advocates for the compassionate treatment of addiction, a position that is increasingly receiving international attention. Healthland recently spoke with Mate about the causes and consequences of addiction and what to do about the problem.



Red Flag

Roundup accumulates in GMO food, proving its lack of safety

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An important new manuscript accepted for publication in the journal Food Chemistry disproves the widely held notion that GMO crops are 'substantially equivalent' to their traditional counterparts; a notion which forms the basis for national and international agencies - including the U.S. FDA, the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Health Organization - declaring genetically modified foods to be safe without having performed adequate health risk assessments.

The new manuscript titled, "Compositional differences in soybeans on the market: Glyphosate accumulates in Roundup Ready GM soybeans,"[i] was submitted by a team of researchers from Norway and the United Kingdom who explored the compositional differences of 31 soybean batches from Iowa, USA, which consisted of three different types:
  1. Genetically modified, glyphosate-tolerant soy (GM-soy);
  2. Unmodified soy cultivated using a conventional "chemical" cultivation regime;
  3. Unmodified soy cultivated using an organic cultivation regime.
Their analysis revealed the following discoveries:
  • "Organic soybeans showed the healthiest nutritional profile with more sugars, such as glucose, fructose, sucrose and maltose, significantly more total protein, zinc and less fibre than both conventional and GM-soy."
  • "Organic soybeans also contained less total saturated fat and total omega-6 fatty acids than both conventional and GM-soy."
  • "GM-soy contained high residues of glyphosate and AMPA (mean 3.3 and 5.7mg/kg, respectively). Conventional and organic soybean batches contained none of these agrochemicals."

TV

How Big Pharma brainwashes Americans into believing they're sick

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Big pharma uses celebrities and other sneaky ways to sell diseases that may not exist.

Most of us have our guard up when it comes to direct-to-consumer drug advertising. We know the butterflies, sunsets and puppies in the TV ads are designed to distract us from terms like "blood clot," "heart attack," "stroke," "seizure," "life-threatening allergic reaction" and "death." We are aware that more than half the ads tell us why we don't actually want to ask our doctor about the new wonder drug.

Unbranded advertising, however, is much more insidious. Instead of selling a drug, it sells the disease driving the drug sales and sometimes doesn't mention the drug at all.

Unbranded advertising often appears to be from the CDC and can even run free as a public service announcement thanks to its apparently altruistic message. The hallmark of unbranded advertising is it calls the disease it's hawking (whether depression, bipolar disorder or restless legs) "under-diagnosed," and "underreported" and cites "barriers" and "stigmas to treatment" which of course means sales. Sometimes it calls the disease a "silent killer" to scare people who think they're fine. (Before drug advertising it was the opposite: the medical establishment said you were probably fine despite how you felt.)

Cupcake Choco

Not surprising: Gluten intolerance could be possible cause of "unexplained infertility"

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Fertility experts said up to 25 per cent of infertile patients are classified as having "unexplained infertility", and an expert said a possible explanation could be intolerance to gluten.

Fertility experts said up to 25 per cent of infertile patients are classified as having "unexplained infertility", and an expert said a possible explanation could be intolerance to gluten.

Colleen Francisca has always had a sweet tooth. The 32-year-old decided to start a dessert parlour in 2012.

But last year, she experienced a serious allergic reaction after eating a pastry, and was forced to re-think her love of desserts.

Ms Francisca said: "I couldn't breathe. My airway closed up on me and my face started to swell."

A series of tests diagnosed Ms Francisca as gluten-intolerant.

Comment: Gluten causes much more problems that infertility. It is one of the most health damaging substances there is.
The Hidden Link Between Gluten Intolerance and PMS, Infertility and Miscarriage
Gluten Causes Nerve Damage
Gluten Sensitivity and Vertigo/Meniere's Disease
Gluten Intolerance Tied to Schizophrenia
Wheat gluten newly confirmed to promote weight gain


Pills

Fluoroquinolone neuropathy feels like acid burning and electrocution

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© Janet Murray"This is me before and after fluoroquinolone toxicity."
My name is Janet Murray, I am 57 years old. I do not even know how to put my health story into words so that the human mind can understand the pain I have lived with. I lived in Canada and had been given many courses of Cipro for various illnesses over the last 30 years. Sometime ago, I began developing a lot of strange problems that no one could diagnose. I had GI difficulties, body pain, migraines every week, severe interstitial cystitis - so severe they wanted to remove my bladder. Thankfully, they did not. I was given many diagnoses too, including Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) and fibromyalgia. My cognitive abilities became so impaired. I loose words and my memory is shot. I had to leave my job with the Federal Government and work at home, at my own hours. I have been extremely fatigued for the last 25 years, but I never connected the dots between my health issues and the fluoroquinolone antibiotics like Cipro, Levaquin, Avelox and others until I blew out my forearm tendon, a classic post fluoroquinolone adverse reaction. It was only then that I began to learn more about the chronic symptoms that fluoroquinolone antibiotics evoke. I had them all and more. These symptoms didn't appear all at once, and so it was difficult to identify at first, but over time, my illnesses became readily apparent and progressive to the point that it was no longer a question of if I was poisoned by a fluoroquinolone, but how badly.

Let me back up a little though and give you some more details. For years, I was fatigued and suffering from post fluoroquinolone reactions, but I didn't know it. During that time, I had a long distance relationship with the love of my life in NJ. He waited and visited me back and forth for 10 years and I visited when I was well enough. When I was finally was well enough to immigrate to the US, I he asked me to marry him and so I stayed and had two wonderful years. We are jewelry designers and did the large shows. I functioned, at very low level and had to rest always, but I was living my dream. Even functioning at such a low level, I was happy after many years of hell.

Comment: For more information, see Beating and Treating Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome by Dr. Rodger Murphree and visit our diet and health forum for more clues as to how address long-standing health problems.


Hotdog

Subway says it will stop using shoe rubber chemicals in your bread

Subway Sandwich
© Subway

Subway announced this week that eventually it will stop using azodicarbonamide - a chemical used in yoga mats and shoe rubber - as an ingredient in its bread.

But representatives for Subway, which apparently does not use the chemical in its European or Australian markets, would not say when the company would actually effect the changes.

Although Subway claims the change was already underway, the announcement coincided with an online petition asking Subway to substitute healthier ingredients.

The petition, started by Vani Hari, an activist who has targeted other fast food companies over chemical ingredients, had more than 60,000 signatures by the time Subway responded.

Still, Subway's representatives refused to elaborate on the timeline.
A representative for Subway says the change was underway before the petition was launched, but did not immediately provide details on when it started or when it would be complete.

"The complete conversion to have this product out of the bread will be done soon," Subway said in a statement, without providing further details.

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Hilarious video exposes what 'Natural' products really mean

Natural
© Bill Hogan/Chicago Tribune
Millions have been duped by the use of corporate language within the food products industry - including myself before I became better educated about what terms like 'natural' and 'organic' really mean. In the case of 'natural', the term actually means virtually nothing.

And some individuals behind the organic movement have put together a funny yet informative video exposing this reality that I recommend you checkout below, even if you're fully aware of this tactic:


Comment: And USDA Certified Organic is an illusion as well! - The organic illusion