Health & WellnessS


Smoking

Tobacco-derived compound prevents memory loss in Alzheimer's disease mice


University of South Florida
Wed, 27 Apr 2011 12:51 UTC
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© Bay Pines VA Healthcare System
Valentina Echeverria, a researcher at Bay Pines VA Healthcare System and the University of South Florida, was lead author of the cotinine study.

Cotinine, a compound derived from tobacco, reduced plaques associated with dementia and prevented memory loss in a mouse model of Alzheimer's disease, a study led by researchers at Bay Pines VA Healthcare System and the University of South Florida found.

The findings are reported online in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease in advance of print publication.

"We found a compound that protects neurons, prevents the progression of Alzheimer's disease pathology, enhances memory and has been shown to be safe," said Valentina Echeverria, PhD, a scientist at Bay Pines VA Healthcare System and an assistant professor of Molecular Medicine at USF Health. "It looks like cotinine acts on several aspects of Alzheimer's pathology in the mouse model. That, combined with the drug's good safety profile in humans, makes it a very attractive potential therapy for Alzheimer's disease."
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Syringe

Vaccine Mania


Alliance for Natural Health
Tue, 26 Apr 2011 21:24 UTC
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© Alliance for Natural Health
The vaccination question is a hotly debated topic, even in the natural health community. It doesn't help when vaccine companies have blatant conflicts of interest and the studies supporting their safety may be fraudulent!

What we all can agree upon is the need to keep crony capitalism out of it, to keep information clear, unambiguous, and uncensored, and to allow people to make informed choices for themselves and their families. As we noted last year, there is an increasing tendency for immunization mandates to become a financial joint venture of the vaccine manufacturer and the government. The government is providing much of the funding manufacturers need to build facilities. So the government, which is supposed to regulate vaccine makers, becomes a full financial and operating partner with the companies they're regulating! The government then turns around and orders us to be vaccinated or be ineligible for school - or in some cases go to jail!

As it stands now, the government gives patent protection and FDA approvals to pharmaceutical companies and thus creates medical monopolies. The government also exempts vaccine makers from legal liability. But when in addition the government invests in the business itself and partners with private companies, then adds the threat of jail for consumer non-compliance, we have a completely out-of-control situation.
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Bug

UK malaria cases rise by 30% in past two years


Daily Mail
Mon, 25 Apr 2011 20:20 UTC
Holidaymakers are being urged to pack anti-malaria pills if they go abroad after figures showed cases of the disease have jumped by almost 30 per cent in two years.

There were 1,761 reports of malaria in the UK in 2010, up on the 1,495 in 2009 and 1,370 in 2008.

The data, from the Health Protection Agency (HPA), was released to mark World Malaria Day and includes Britons and visitors who fell ill in the UK.

cheryl cole
Illness: Cheryl Cole collapsed during the filming of X-Factor after she contracted malaria on a holiday to Tanzania. She spent two hours in intensive care.
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Arrow Up

Peppermint Earns Respect in Mainstream Medicine


Newswise
Tue, 19 Apr 2011 20:08 UTC
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© Hajnalka Ardai, iStock PhotosPeppermint is now clinically proven to be an effective pain reliever for Irritable Bowel Syndrome.
University of Adelaide researchers have shown for the first time how peppermint helps to relieve Irritable Bowel Syndrome, which affects up to 20% of the population.

In a paper published this week in the international journal Pain, researchers from the University's Nerve-Gut Research Laboratory explain how peppermint activates an "anti-pain" channel in the colon, soothing inflammatory pain in the gastrointestinal tract.

Dr. Stuart Brierley says while peppermint has been commonly prescribed by naturopaths for many years, there has been no clinical evidence until now to demonstrate why it is so effective in relieving pain.

"Our research shows that peppermint acts through a specific anti-pain channel called TRPM8 to reduce pain sensing fibers, particularly those activated by mustard and chilli. This is potentially the first step in determining a new type of mainstream clinical treatment for Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS)," he says.
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Nuke

Health risks numerous near nuclear plant


UPI
Mon, 25 Apr 2011 20:01 UTC
bird, japan,nuclear
© UPI/Keizo MoriDestruction is seen as the sun rises in Iwanuma, Miyagi prefecture, Japan, on April 15, 2011. A massive earthquake and ensuing tsunami on March 11 destroyed homes, killed thousands and caused a nuclear disaster.

Tokyo-- Radiation leaks remain a health threat for areas around Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant, officials said.

The crisis at the plant resulted from an earthquake and tsunami March 11.

Some experts believe the Fukushima crisis is more serious than that resulting from an explosion at Ukraine's Chernobyl power plant 25 years ago, the Mainichi Daily News reported Monday.
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Health

Europe, Especially France, Hit by Measles Outbreak

John Heilprin
CNS News
Mon, 25 Apr 2011 18:57 UTC
Geneva - Europe, especially France, has been hit by a major outbreak of measles, which the U.N. health agency is blaming on the failure to vaccinate all children.

The World Health Organization said Thursday that France had 4,937 reported cases of measles between January and March -- compared with 5,090 cases during all of 2010. In all, more than 6,500 cases have been reported in 33 European nations.

"This is a lot of cases, to put it mildly. In past years we've had very few cases," said Rebecca Martin, head of WHO's office in Copenhagen for vaccine-preventable diseases and immunization.
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Attention

Laying bare the not-so-sweet tale of a sugar and its role in the spread of cancer


American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Mon, 25 Apr 2011 07:35 UTC
Scientists close in on molecular moves that let tumor cells act as stowaways in lymphatic system.

Cancer has a mighty big bag of tricks that it uses to evade the body's natural defense mechanisms and proliferate. Among those tricks is one that allows tumor cells to turn the intricate and extensive system of lymphatic vessels into something of a highway to metastasis. Yet research unveiled this week may aid in the development of therapeutics that will put the brakes on such cancer spread, and the researchers who completed the study say the findings may extend to other lymphatic disorders.

In the latest issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry, the team at the VA San Diego Healthcare System and the University of California, San Diego, reports an important advance in the understanding of the molecular machinery needed for lymphatic cell growth.

"In many carcinomas, lymphatic vessels grow and remodel around and sometimes within tumors. This allows tumor cells to go upstream to the lymph nodes," explains assistant professor Mark Fuster, who led the study. Once tumor cells hitch a ride to the lymph nodes, the disease can be more difficult to fight. "We were trying to understand the mechanisms that turn on the growth of lymphatic vessel cells in the laboratory."

Comment: Read Can a High-Fat Diet Beat Cancer? to further understand how cancer cells appear to fuel themselves exclusively through glycolysis (creating energy through the fermentation of sugar in the cytoplasm). And how high-in-animal-fat ketogenic diet, which eliminates almost all carbohydrates, including sugar, helps to prevent cancer cells from spreading.

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Family

Height: Very Poor Women Are Shrinking, as Are Their Chances at a Better Life

Donald G. McNeil
New York Times
Tue, 26 Apr 2011 05:21 UTC
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© Michael Tsegaye/Bloomberg News
The average height of very poor women in some developing countries has shrunk in recent decades, according to a new study by Harvard researchers.

Height is a reliable indicator of childhood nutrition, disease and poverty. Average heights have declined among women in 14 African countries, the study found, and stagnated in 21 more in Africa and South America. That suggests, the authors said, that poor women born in the last two decades, especially in Africa, are worse off than their mothers or grandmothers born after World War II.

"It's a sobering picture," said S. V. Subramanian, a professor at the Harvard School of Public Health and lead author. "It tells you the world is not getting to be a better place for women of lower socioeconomic status. For them, it's getting worse."
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Bacon

Can a High-Fat Diet Beat Cancer?

Richard Friebe
Time Magazine
Mon, 17 Sep 2007 00:12 UTC
steak
© Istockphoto
The women's hospital at the University of Würzburg used to be the biggest of its kind in Germany. Its former size is part of the historical burden it carries - countless women were involuntarily sterilized here when it stood in the geographical center of Nazi Germany.

Today, the capacity of the historical building overlooking the college town, where the baroque and mid-20th-century concrete stand in a jarring mix, has been downsized considerably. And the experiments within its walls are of a very different nature.

Since early 2007, Dr. Melanie Schmidt and biologist Ulrike Kämmerer, both at the Würzburg hospital, have been enrolling cancer patients in a Phase I clinical study of a most unexpected medication: fat. Their trial puts patients on a so-called ketogenic diet, which eliminates almost all carbohydrates, including sugar, and provides energy only from high-quality plant oils, such as hempseed and linseed oil, and protein from soy and animal products.
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Beaker

Pediatricians Seek Better Regulation of Toxins

Liz Szabo
USA Today
Mon, 25 Apr 2011 20:30 UTC
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© Greenpeace
The U.S. needs to do a better job protecting children and pregnant women from toxic chemicals, says a policy statement out today from the American Academy of Pediatrics.

The group says children's developing brains and bodies are far more vulnerable than adults' to toxins. And while pediatricians typically spend more time in the clinic than on Capitol Hill, the policy's authors say they felt compelled to advocate for patients who can't defend themselves.

"Kids don't vote," says pediatrician Jerome Paulson of Children's National Medical Center in Washington, D.C., lead author of the statement.

The pediatrics group is the latest of a growing number of medical organizations - including the American Medical Association, American Nurses Association and American Public Health Association - to call for changes in the way that the government regulates dangerous chemicals.

Comment: Advocates such as pediatricians are valid in their concern that toxic chemical exposures are having serious effects on children. The following article is just one example of the neurodevelopmental disorders caused by industrial chemicals:

Mind Games: How Toxic Chemicals are Impairing Children's Ability to Learn
"The combined evidence suggests that neurodevelopmental disorders caused by industrial chemicals have created a silent pandemic in modern society."
By pandemic, the authors of The Lancet study mean that learning and developmental disorders are common, cut across all walks of life in all geographic regions, and are ballooning in prevalence. Changing diagnostic criteria, along with the absence of a nationwide registry, makes vexing the work of constructing precise time trends. The estimate most often cited by the medical literature is that developmental disabilities now affect about one in every six U.S. children, and most of these are disabilities of the nervous system. If accurate, this figure means that the number of children with neurodevelopmental disorders now exceeds the number of children with asthma, which is also a problem of pandemic proportion.

By silent, the authors mean that these disorders are subclinical. They don't announce themselves on an X-ray or in a pathology lab. There is no medical test to herald their increasingly familiar presence among us.


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