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Study shows young Americans addicted to internet

Samia Sehgal
The Money Times
Sun, 25 Apr 2010 21:51 UTC
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Youngsters in America are so hooked to cell phones, computers and social media that now it has become an addiction. A new study has revealed that college students are obsessed with social networking media and have started showing symptoms similar to drug and alcohol addiction.

Researchers at the University of Maryland conducted a study involving 200 students. They found that the youngsters want to stay connected all the time and are in the habit of having an easy access to all information around them.

Students who were engaged in some unnatural and unrealistic behaviors did some self-reporting to form the end-results of the study. The students were asked by the researchers to quit all electronic media for 24 hours, following which they were asked to pen down their experience.
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Milk Thistle Herb Protects Liver from Damage Caused by Chemotherapy

David Gutierrez
NaturalNews
Sun, 25 Apr 2010 12:00 UTC
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© Bio-Health
The herbal supplement milk thistle may prevent liver damage in people undergoing chemotherapy, according to a new study conducted by researchers from Columbia University Medical Center and published in the journal Cancer.

Researchers conducted the study on 50 children undergoing a "maintenance" round of chemotherapy for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), a type of blood cancer. Approximately two-thirds of all children undergoing treatment for ALL usually develop liver toxicity during their treatment, presenting doctors with the choice between scaling back the treatment and risking a resurgence of the cancer, or continuing with treatment unaltered and risking permanent liver damage and lifelong health complications. There is currently no known way of preventing liver toxicity in chemotherapy patients.

Study participants were assigned to take either a milk thistle pill or a placebo capsule for one month. At the start of the study, all 50 children were suffering from liver inflammation due to prior rounds of chemotherapy. By the end, children taking milk thistle had significantly lower levels of two liver inflammation markers than children taking a placebo.
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Magic Wand

Good Health is No Accident

Mike Adams
NaturalNews
Sat, 24 Apr 2010 00:00 UTC
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© NaturalNews
Those who seek answers for their health outside the realm of their own decisions are looking in the wrong place. Health is no accident. Lasting health can only appear as the result of a lifetime of informed, deliberate decisions aligned with nature's principles of health, not the distorted version of health promoted by our backward system of mainstream medicine.

And yet many people still believe that health is something that is bestowed upon them by some mysterious exterior force. The whole effort to raise money to find "the cure" for cancer, for example, is a powerful demonstration of misplaced faith in external healing. This idea that a cure for cancer must come from outside one's self rather than from within is perhaps the greatest conceptual sleight of hand that has yet been pulled off by the sick-care industry.

The cure for cancer is already programmed within. Each person is born with a highly-advanced cellular nanotechnology that already knows how to cure cancer. Activating this inner healing potential is all that's necessary to prevent and cure cancer everywhere around the world, starting right now.
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Family

Children Who Lose a Parent to Suicide More Likely to Die the Same Way


Medical News Today
Sat, 24 Apr 2010 01:00 UTC
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© Getty Images
Losing a parent to suicide makes children more likely to die by suicide themselves and increases their risk of developing a range of major psychiatric disorders, according to a study led by Johns Hopkins Children's Center that is believed to be the largest one to date on the subject.

A report on the findings will appear in the May issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry.

How and when the parent died strongly influenced their child's risk, the researchers report. And because the findings show that parental suicide affects children and teens more profoundly than young adults, it is likely that environmental and developmental factors, as well as genetic ones, are at work in next-generation risk, the scientists say.

"Losing a parent to suicide at an early age emerges as a catalyst for suicide and psychiatric disorders," says lead investigator Holly C. Wilcox, Ph.D., a psychiatric epidemiologist at Hopkins Children's. "However, it's likely that developmental, environmental and genetic factors all come together, most likely simultaneously, to increase risk."
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Levels of Self-Esteem May Fluctuate Over Time

Randy Dotinga
HealthDay News
Wed, 21 Apr 2010 00:00 UTC
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© Google Images
Self-esteem increases as people grow older, but dips when people are in their 60s, although those who make more money and are healthier tend to retain better views of themselves, researchers have found.

In the study, published in the April issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, researchers surveyed 3,617 U.S. adults aged 25 to 104, trying to reach all of them four times between 1986 and 2002.

"Self-esteem is related to better health, less criminal behavior, lower levels of depression and, overall, greater success in life," the study's lead author, Ulrich Orth, said in a news release from the American Psychological Association. "Therefore, it's important to learn more about how the average person's self-esteem changes over time."

Young people had the lowest self-esteem, but it grew as people aged, peaking at about age 60. Women had lower self-esteem than men, on average, until they reached their 80s and 90s, the study authors found.
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Being "Blinded By Jealousy" Can Be Real

Robert Preidt
HealthDay News
Thu, 15 Apr 2010 00:00 UTC
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© Chuck Yeager/FlickrBlind jealousy
Women really can be blinded by jealousy, according to a new study.

Researchers had heterosexual couples sit near each other at separate computers. The woman was told to look for pictures of landscapes amid rapidly flashing images, while trying to ignore the occasional gruesome or upsetting image.

At the same time, her male partner was told to rate the attractiveness of landscapes that appeared on his computer screen. Partway through the experiment, a researcher announced that the man would now rate the attractiveness of single women.

The more jealous women felt about this, the more they were so distracted by unpleasant images that they weren't able to see their target pictures of attractive landscapes, said University of Delaware psychology professors Steven Most and Jean-Philippe Laurenceau.

The study authors said it's long been known that mental and physical health can be affected by emotions associated with social relationships, but these findings demonstrate that social emotions can literally affect what people see.
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Acupuncture Could Relieve Period Pain

Ethan A. Huff
NaturalNews
Sat, 24 Apr 2010 00:00 UTC
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© Getty Images
A recent study published in the British Journal of Obstetrics has found that acupuncture may be effective at reducing the pain experienced by women who are going through their period. Researchers evaluated 27 studies that included over 3,000 participating women. From these, the study team came to the conclusion that there is "promising evidence" concerning the viability of acupuncture in treating menstrual pain.

Doctors usually treat the nausea, diarrhea, migraine headaches, back pain, and other symptoms that accompany a woman's monthly period, with pain killer drugs. However, alternative treatments like acupuncture are gaining popularity because many have experienced superior relief from them without having to take pharmaceuticals.

The Kyung Hee Medical Center research team that conducted the study found that patients who underwent acupuncture treatment experienced a greater reduction in pain than did those who relied on drug treatments. They were unable to verify, however, whether or not the treatment actually affects womens' nervous systems when providing relief.
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Heal and Soothe Stomach Ulcers Without Mainstream Drugs

Tony Isaacs
NaturalNews
Sat, 24 Apr 2010 00:00 UTC
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© Getty Images
Stomach ulcers are small holes or sores in the gastrointestinal tract which affect millions of Americans every year. The most common major symptom of an ulcer is a burning or gnawing feeling in the stomach area that lasts from half an hour up to three hours. Usually, the pain occurs in the upper abdomen, but may sometimes occur below the breastbone. Fortunately, there are several natural remedies which can heal and soothe stomach ulcers without the risk of mainstream drugs.

Appetite and weight loss are also common symptoms of ulcers. Other symptoms which may occur include recurrent vomiting, black stool, blood in the stool and anemia. Often ulcer pain is misinterpreted as heartburn, indigestion or hunger. A person with duodenal ulcers may experience weight gain due to eating more to ease discomfort.

Also known as peptic ulcers, stomach ulcers are caused by the destruction of the gastric or intestinal mucosal lining of the stomach by hydrochloric acid, an acid normally present in the digestive juices of the stomach. Infection from the bacterium Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) is thought to play an important role in causing both gastric and duodenal ulcers. H. pylori may be transmitted from one person to another through contaminated food and water.
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Health

Kinesio taping setting gold standard for patients

Margaret Beardsley
AZFamily
Fri, 23 Apr 2010 12:57 UTC
Ice, wraps and medicine are all in the pain and swelling treatment arsenal but 3TV shows you a treatment that is setting a gold standard for patients.

At the Beijing Olympics Keri Walsh had everyone talking about the strange tape she was wearing on her arm. Since then that tape has made its way into more and more therapy rooms and lots of people are benefiting from it.

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Health

Revealed: Pfizer's payments to censured doctors

Peter Aldhous and Jim Giles
New Scientist
Fri, 23 Apr 2010 12:08 UTC
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© Spencer Platt/Getty
They are billed as "healthcare professionals who spend years building expertise in their fields". Using materials firmly grounded in science, they educate their peers in the risks and benefits of drugs.

This is how Pfizer, the pharmaceuticals giant, describes the experts it hires to lead educational forums in which doctors are lectured on the use of its products.

Yet New Scientist has found that some of Pfizer's experts have been disciplined for deficiencies in patient care, while others have been reprimanded for how they conducted drug research trials.

The findings add to a growing controversy surrounding the pharmaceutical industry's efforts to market drugs by influencing patterns of prescribing.

Unknown influence

Doctors paid to educate peers are a particular worry, argues Sidney Wolfe of consumer advocacy group Public Citizen in Washington DC. "They are doing things that may be influencing your doctor and you have no way of knowing about it," he says. "It's made worse by the fact that some of them have been disciplined."
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