Health & WellnessS


Book

Book Review: Gluten Toxicity - The Mysterious Symptoms of Celiac Disease, Dermatitis Herpetiformis, and Non-Celiac Gluten Intolerance

Wendy Cohan
Celiac
Mon, 21 Feb 2011 00:00 UTC
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© unknownA book review: Gluten Toxicity
After reading this new book by celiac nurse specialist Shelly Stuart, RN, what shines through above all is her true understanding of the complex nature of gluten-related illnesses, and her heartfelt compassion for patients who suffer from them. Her book is extremely well researched and documented. As a registered nurse and celiac herself, Ms. Stuart is able to use her strong patient teaching experience to clearly educate the reader about even very complicated subjects. She provides excellent explanations of leaky gut and the pathophysiology of celiac disease, and she is one of the first clinicians to write in-depth about non-celiac gluten intolerance. Importantly, she makes the point that immune mediated reactions can and do occur in non-celiac gluten intolerance, and backs this up by citing clinical evidence. Another important point made concerns pancreatic insufficiency, which can accompany celiac disease, but few know that this condition can persist even after diagnosis and transition to a gluten-free diet. Her discussion of the many, varied health disorders associated with celiac disease is very comprehensive.

One of the most compelling aspects to Gluten Toxicity is the many important questions asked regarding the future of clinical research. Ms. Stuart makes it crystal clear that we need to know much more about the physical and mental health effects of gluten-related illness. This can only come about by increasing awareness both within the medical and research communities, and throughout each of our communities. We must all become advocates for greater testing and more accurate diagnosis.
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Ambulance

Mother's Employment Increases Children's Health Risks


Teaching Your Middle Schooler
Mon, 21 Feb 2011 17:26 UTC
NCSU economics professor Dr. Melinda Morrill has some bad news for working moms. In her study comparing health statistics of school-aged children with working mothers to those with mothers who stay at home, Morrill found that the children of mothers who worked were 200% more likely to be hospitalized overnight, to suffer an injury or poisoning, or to have a asthma attack.

Morrill's study looked at 20 years of health statistics involving approximately 89,000 children aged 7-17. Her results differ from previous studies that indicated children of working mothers were healthier, presumably because of higher income, greater access to health insurance, and increased maternal self-esteem. Those studies were flawed, according to Morrill, because they had reversed cause and effect. That is, the stay-at-home mother group had numbers of moms of children with such severe medical problems that they required full-time care or supervision, effectively eliminating the option of the mother to work outside the home. But these children weren't getting sick because their moms were home; their moms were home because the children were so sick.
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Arrow Up

Lavender Oil May Prove Helpful in Treatment of Fungal Diseases

Jasmine
Medguru.com
Thu, 17 Feb 2011 15:05 UTC
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© medguru.com
Researchers from the University of Coimbra in Portugal recently revealed that lavender essential oil, widely known as a natural beauty ingredient, could prove helpful in the treatment of fungal diseases which develop resistance to medication over period of time.

As per study researchers, lavender oil possess anti-fungal properties that can be used against dermatophytes, a fungus known to cause nail infections, ring worm, and athletes foot.

While commenting on the new study findings, researchers' Professor Lígia Salgueiro and Professor Eugénia Pinto, who jointly led the study, explained in their press release,
"In the last few years there has been an increase in the incidence of fungal diseases, particularly among immune-compromised patients. Unfortunately there is also increasing resistance to antifungal drugs. Research by our group and others has shown that essential oils may be cheap, efficient alternatives that have minimal side effects."
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Magnify

ADHD Drugs Linked To Parkinson's Disease in New Study


NewsInferno
Mon, 21 Feb 2011 14:36 UTC
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© Scientific AmericanDo ADHD drugs take a toll on on the brain?
We have long reported on various substances being linked to Parkinson's disease. Now, WTMA reports that the progressive, degenerative central nervous system disorder that affects motor skills and speech has been linked to certain amphetamines.

A study conducted by Kaiser Permanente Northern California, found that some medications - notably the amphetamines Benzedrine or Dexedrine - used in the treatment of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) that are meant to help ADHD patients achieve more defined focus and increase clarity and awareness, could also place those patients at risk for Parkinson's disease, said WTMA. Findings on the potential defective drug issue were presented this weekend at a meeting of the American Academy of Neurology.
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Bell

Chicken, Antibiotic-resistant Bacteria, and Regulatory Independence

Tom Philpott
Grist
Tue, 15 Feb 2011 14:06 UTC
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© GristWould you like that chicken tainted with salmonella with resistance to one, two, three, or four different antibiotics?
After my post Monday on aspartame's wild and wacky path from pharmaceutical-company lab to beverage sweetener for millions of people, I got into a back-and-forth on Twitter with star progressive bloggers Matt Yglesias and Adam Ozimek.

They seemed shocked (and a little angry) by my suggestion that something approved both by the FDA and its European counterparts might actually menace the public health. Well, I, in turn, am shocked by the credibility they lavish on these institutions. When you study the politics of food, stories of the "FDA [or USDA or EPA or some European agency] approves [insert dodgy, lucrative practice or substance]" nature are hardly earth-shaking.

Indeed, industry influence over the food-related regulatory institutions seems pretty widespread, as I tried to show in the aspartame post. On Tuesday, an all-too-apt example crossed my desk. It involves the practice of routine use of antibiotics on factory farms - which almost certainly contributes to the surge in antibiotic-resistant infections among people. MRSA - an antibiotic-resistant staph infection - now kills more Americans than AIDS.
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Cow

Propaganda Alert! Eat less red meat, British Government scientists warn

Patrick Hennessy
The Telegraph, UK
Sun, 20 Feb 2011 07:18 UTC
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© Christopher JonesYum, steak!
Britons will be warned that they must cut their consumption of red meat to reduce the risk of cancer, following official advice from the Government scientists.

Consumers will be told to eat no more than 500g (1.1lb) of red or processed meat each week, or 70g (2.5oz) a day, under recommendations to be issued by the Coalition this week.

The daily total is the equivalent of three rashers of bacon - while the weekly amount would be reached by eating one large steak, a pork chop, two sausages and a small portion of beef bolognese sauce.

A Coalition source said: "It is important that people are not put off eating red meat entirely - but it would be irresponsible to ignore the potential health risks. The advice is very clear."

The recommendations will follow the publication of a full report by the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition, which is due within days. The findings are expected to echo the committee's draft report, which found that lower consumption of both red and processed meat would probably reduce the risk of bowel cancer, the second most common cause of cancer death in Britain.

Comment: We would love to see them try to come up with similar results for organic, grass-fed meat.

Saturated Fat and Heart Disease

The Type of Meat that's Full of Cancer-Causing Toxins

Processed Meats Declared Too Dangerous for Human Consumption

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Health

The Drugs Won't Work if you Don't Believe in Them

Stephen Adams
The Telegraph, UK
Wed, 16 Feb 2011 20:15 UTC
neck pain woman
© n/a
Pain really is all in the mind, according to scientists who have discovered that positive thoughts can double a painkiller's effect while negative thoughts can cancel them out.

Researchers from Oxford, Cambridge and two German universities made their conclusions after a novel experiment examining the role of conscious thought in pain perception.

First, 22 volunteers had a pain device put on their skin that was too hot for comfort.

Each then had an intravenous line attached to deliver a powerful opiate-based painkiller.

The volunteers were asked to rate the pain before any painkiller was introduced. The average score, from 0 to 100, was 66.

Then the researchers started providing the painkiller, without telling the volunteers they had done so. The average score dropped to 55.

But when the scientists told them they had started administering the painkiller the score dropped again to 39.

When they said they had stopped providing the painkiller, the score rose to 64 - even though the opiate was still flowing.
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Health

Rare Form of Dwarfism May Protect Against Diabetes & Cancer


Discover Magazine
Sat, 19 Feb 2011 16:51 UTC
Ecuadorian Dwarves
They're about three and a half feet tall and their origins are mysterious, but an isolated group of Ecuadorians with a genetic mutation causing dwarfism are making news for another reason: They hardly ever get cancer or diabetes. Medical researchers say the villagers' genetic protection from these diseases could lead to preventative treatments for the general population - and could therefore increase human longevity.

The villagers' condition is called Laron syndrome, which is caused by an insensitivity to growth hormone.
Laron syndrome results from a mutation in the gene that codes for growth hormone receptor (GHR), a protein that binds with the human growth hormone and ultimately results in the production of the insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF1), causing cells to grow and divide. When a person has two of these mutated and non-working genes, they can develop the disease. [LiveScience]
Jaime Guevara-Aguirre, the leader of the study about the Ecuadorians appearing in Science Translational Medicine, has been looking into their condition and extraordinary resistance to age-related diseases for more than two decades, since his serendipitous discovery of the people while riding horseback in Ecuador.
"I discovered the population in 1987," Dr. Guevara-Aguirre said in an interview from Ecuador. "In 1994, I noticed these patients were not having cancer, compared with their relatives. People told me they are too few people to make any assumption. People said, 'You have to wait 10 years,' so I waited. No one believed me until I got to Valter Longo in 2005." [The New York Times]
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Magnify

The Right to Discriminate Against Smokers

Jacob Sullum
Reason.org
Fri, 11 Feb 2011 11:32 UTC
Uncle Sam says dont smoke
© Unknown
The New York Times reports that "more hospitals and medical businesses in many states are adopting strict policies that make smoking a reason to turn away job applicants." The Times concedes there are "no reliable data on how many businesses have adopted such policies," so the evidence of a trend is thin. But the shift from smoke-free to smoker-free workplaces (assuming it is in fact occurring) is interesting because it provokes objections not only from cigarette manufacturers (who years ago lobbied for bans on employment discrimination against smokers, which most states have adopted) but also from civil libertarians and even some anti-smoking activists. Michael Siegel, the Boston University public health professor who regularly criticizes anti-smoking groupthink, pseudoscience, and extremism, says:
If enough of these companies adopt these policies and it really becomes difficult for smokers to find jobs, there are going to be consequences. Unemployment is also bad for health.
The American Civil Liberties Union and the National Workrights Institute likewise want to protect smokers from employment discrimination. Lewis Maltby, president of the latter group, says:
There is nothing unique about smoking. The number of things that we all do privately that have negative impact on our health is endless. If it's not smoking, it's beer. If it's not beer, it's cheeseburgers. And what about your sex life?
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Stop

The Truth about Soy

Dr. Mercola
nafwa.org
Sat, 19 Feb 2011 10:58 UTC
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© iStockphoto/Thinkstock
In the early 1990's, soy and soy products exploded onto the supermarket scene with promises of bountiful health benefits.

This "new miracle food," soy, was supposed to lower cholesterol, take the heat out of hot flashes, protect against breast and prostate cancer and offer a filling alternative to earth-loving vegetarians.

The problem with these claims?

Most of them are false.

Sadly, most of what you have been led to believe by the media about soy is simply untrue. The sudden upsurge in the recommendation of soy as a health food has been nothing more than a clever marketing gimmick to further reduce the cost and nutritional content of your food.
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