Health & WellnessS


Attention

Genetically Engineered Food Alters Our Digestive Systems!

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© Alliance for Natural Health
Genetically Engineered organisms actually become part of the bacteria in our digestive tracts and reproduce continuously inside us. But the USDA now wants to to remove all controls from GE corn and cotton!

There are no human clinical trials of genetically engineered foods. The only published human feeding experiment revealed that genetic material inserted into GE soy transfers into the DNA of bacteria living inside our intestines and continues to function. Even after we stop eating GE foods, we may still have the GE proteins produced continuously inside us.

As the Institute for Responsible Technology has noted, the genetic engineering process creates massive collateral damage, causing mutations in hundreds or thousands of locations throughout the plant's DNA. Natural genes can be deleted or permanently turned on or off, and hundreds may change their behavior. Even the inserted gene can be damaged or rearranged, and may create proteins that can trigger allergies or promote disease.

Heart

Courageous British Mum Says Smoking During Her Pregnancy Helped Make Her Baby Stronger

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© Bancroft Media
A young mother who smoked 15 - 20 cigarettes a day during pregnancy claimed it helped to make her baby stronger.

Charlie Wilcox, 20, from Rainham, Kent, was warned that smoking while pregnant restricted the amount of oxygen available to her unborn baby. However, she believed that this would make her unborn baby's heart work harder.

Appearing on BBC3's Misbehaving Mums To Be, she said: It's making the baby use its heart on its own in the first place, so that when it comes out, its going to be able to do those things by itself.

"Where's the proof that it's so bad to smoke?

When pregnant, tests showed that the levels of carbon monoxide in Ms Wilcox's blood were six times higher than those considered safe.

Comment: Notice how the article is loaded with statements of fact. But like Charlie, we find ourselves asking, where's the proof?

Lies, Damned Lies & 400,000 Smoking-related Deaths: Cooking the Data in the Fascists' Anti-Smoking Crusade

Smoking Helps Protect Against Lung Cancer

Health Benefits of Smoking Tobacco

Nicotine and Autism: Another study demonstrates nicotine's neurological benefits

Warning: Nicotine Seriously Improves Health


Cell Phone

WHO Warns of Possible Link Between Cell Phone Use, Brain Cancer Risk

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© UnknownExtra! Extra! WHO finally figures out what has been known since the 80's!
The World Health Organization (WHO) has determined that radiation from cell phones can possibly increase brain cancer risk - a change in thinking for an organization that previously has denied evidence of any such link.

The decision is based on the judgment of a group of 31 scientists from 14 countries including the United States who reviewed a collection of the latest research while in France earlier this month.

The decision is sobering considering there are some 5 billion cell phones in use now.

"The WHO/International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has classified radio-frequency electromagnetic fields as possibly carcinogenic to humans... based on an increased risk for glioma, a malignant type of brain cancer1, associated with wireless phone use," WHO reports.

WHO recommends that users limit their exposure to such radiation if possible, though also said more research is needed to verify an absolute link between cell phone use and cancer (the scientists also studied occupation exposure to radar and microwaves as well as environmental exposure to radio, TV and wireless communications signals.

Comment: What if the title were: "WHO says there IS a Link Between Cell Phone Use and Brain Cancer" without all the Possible, sort of, maybe, kind of, risky or could be?


Cow

The Soft Science of Dietary Fat

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© primalbody-primalmind.com
When the U.S. Surgeon General's Office set off in 1988 to write the definitive report on the dangers of dietary fat, the scientific task appeared straightforward. Four years earlier, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) had begun advising every American old enough to walk to restrict fat intake, and the president of the American Heart Association (AHA) had told Time magazine that if everyone went along, "we will have [atherosclerosis] conquered" by the year 2000. The Surgeon General's Office itself had just published its 700-page landmark "Report on Nutrition and Health," declaring fat the single most unwholesome component of the American diet.

All of this was apparently based on sound science. So the task before the project officer was merely to gather that science together in one volume, have it reviewed by a committee of experts, which had been promptly established, and publish it. The project did not go smoothly, however. Four project officers came and went over the next decade. "It consumed project officers," says Marion Nestle, who helped launch the project and now runs the nutrition and food studies department at New York University (NYU). Members of the oversight committee saw drafts of an early chapter or two, criticized them vigorously, and then saw little else.

Finally, in June 1999, 11 years after the project began, the Surgeon General's Office circulated a letter, authored by the last of the project officers, explaining that the report would be killed. There was no other public announcement and no press release. The letter explained that the relevant administrators "did not anticipate fully the magnitude of the additional external expertise and staff resources that would be needed." In other words, says Nestle, the subject matter "was too complicated." Bill Harlan, a member of the oversight committee and associate director of the Office of Disease Prevention at NIH, says "the report was initiated with a preconceived opinion of the conclusions," but the science behind those opinions was not holding up. "Clearly the thoughts of yesterday were not going to serve us very well."

During the past 30 years, the concept of eating healthy in America has become synonymous with avoiding dietary fat. The creation and marketing of reduced-fat food products has become big business; over 15,000 have appeared on supermarket shelves. Indeed, an entire research industry has arisen to create palatable nonfat fat substitutes, and the food industry now spends billions of dollars yearly selling the less-fat-is-good-health message. The government weighs in as well, with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA's) booklet on dietary guidelines, published every 5 years, and its ubiquitous Food Guide Pyramid, which recommends that fats and oils be eaten "sparingly." The low-fat gospel spreads farther by a kind of societal osmosis, continuously reinforced by physicians, nutritionists, journalists, health organizations, and consumer advocacy groups such as the Center for Science in the Public Interest, which refers to fat as this "greasy killer." "In America, we no longer fear God or the communists, but we fear fat," says David Kritchevsky of the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia, who in 1958 wrote the first textbook on cholesterol.

As the Surgeon General's Office discovered, however, the science of dietary fat is not nearly as simple as it once appeared. The proposition, now 50 years old, that dietary fat is a bane to health is based chiefly on the fact that fat, specifically the hard, saturated fat found primarily in meat and dairy products, elevates blood cholesterol levels. This in turn raises the likelihood that cholesterol will clog arteries, a condition known as atherosclerosis, which then increases risk of coronary artery disease, heart attack, and untimely death. By the 1970s, each individual step of this chain from fat to cholesterol to heart disease had been demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt, but the veracity of the chain as a whole has never been proven. In other words, despite decades of research, it is still a debatable proposition whether the consumption of saturated fats above recommended levels (step one in the chain) by anyone who's not already at high risk of heart disease will increase the likelihood of untimely death (outcome three). Nor have hundreds of millions of dollars in trials managed to generate compelling evidence that healthy individuals can extend their lives by more than a few weeks, if that, by eating less fat (see sidebar on p. 2538). To put it simply, the data remain ambiguous as to whether low-fat diets will benefit healthy Americans. Worse, the ubiquitous admonishments to reduce total fat intake have encouraged a shift to high-carbohydrate diets, which may be no better--and may even be worse--than high-fat diets.

Info

Case of NDM-1 Superbug Appears to be First Acquired Within Canada: Researchers

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© The Associated Press / Kirsty WigglesworthThis Oct. 12, 2009 photo shows a petri dish with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MSRA) cultures at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in King's Lynn, England. It's in this hospital that Dr. Lynne Liebowitz, a temporarily employed microbiologist, got tired of seeing the stunningly low Nordic MRSA rates while facing her own burgeoning cases. So she turned her Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Kings Lynn into a petri dish, asking doctors to almost completely stop using two antibiotics known for provoking MRSA infections. One month later, the results were in: MRSA rates were tumbling. And they've continued to plummet. Five years ago, the hospital had 47 MRSA bloodstream infections. This year they've had one.
Canadian researchers have identified what appears to be the first domestically acquired case of an NDM-1 superbug.

An 86-year-old Ontario man was found to be carrying bacteria resistant to most antibiotics because of NDM-1, or New Delhi metallo-1, an enzyme that alters the DNA of various types of bacteria. NDM-1 is endemic in India and Pakistan and has spread worldwide due to global travel.

But the patient, who was admitted to hospital and then a rehabilitation centre after suffering a stroke last October, had not travelled outside southwestern Ontario for the last decade. None of the man's family members or other close contacts were carrying the superbug, nor had any been to parts of the world where NDM-1 is widespread.

"So it's really unfortunately a mystery in terms of his source, and it certainly suggests that he acquired it here in the southwestern Ontario region," said Dr. Susan Poutanen, an infectious disease physician at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto.

"So whether it was in Toronto, whether it was outside of Toronto, whether it was in hospital or whether it was in the community, at this point we really can't say," added Poutanen, principal investigator of a study describing the case.

She said the case is not cause for public alarm but is meant to alert hospitals and laboratories not to dismiss NDM-1 as a cause of drug-resistant bacteria in patients merely because they have not travelled outside Canada.

Gear

The Drug Metyrapone to Erase Bad Memories?

Pill Bottles
© PsychCentral

University of Montreal researchers say that the drug metyrapone reduces the brain's ability to re-record the negative emotions associated with painful memories. In other words, bad memories are effectively blocked from being recalled or remembered.

The team's study challenges the theory that memories cannot be modified once they are stored in the brain.

"Metyrapone is a drug that significantly decreases the levels of cortisol, a stress hormone that is involved in memory recall," explained lead author Marie-France Marin, a doctoral student.

Manipulating cortisol close to the time of forming new memories can decrease the negative emotions that may be associated with them, the researchers said.

"The results show that when we decrease stress hormone levels at the time of recall of a negative event, we can impair the memory for this negative event with a long-lasting effect," said Sonia Lupien, Ph.D., who directed the research.

Evil Rays

Cell Phones and Cancer: Assessment Classifies Radiofrequency Electromagnetic Fields as Possibly Carcinogenic to Humans

Evil Rays
© fderib / FotoliaA new World Health Organization report classifies radiofrequency electromagnetic fields as possibly carcinogenic to humans, based on an increased risk for glioma, a malignant type of brain cancer, associated with wireless phone use.

The WHO/International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has classified radiofrequency electromagnetic fields as possibly carcinogenic to humans (Group 2B), based on an increased risk for glioma, a malignant type of brain cancer1, associated with wireless phone use.

Background

Over the last few years, there has been mounting concern about the possibility of adverse health effects resulting from exposure to radiofrequency electromagnetic fields, such as those emitted by wireless communication devices. The number of mobile phone subscriptions is estimated at 5 billion globally.

From May 24-31 2011, a Working Group of 31 scientists from 14 countries has been meeting at IARC in Lyon, France, to assess the potential carcinogenic hazards from exposure to radiofrequency electromagnetic fields. These assessments will be published as Volume 102 of the IARC Monographs, which will be the fifth volume in this series to focus on physical agents, after Volume 55 (Solar Radiation), Volume 75 and Volume 78 on ionizing radiation (X‐rays, gamma‐rays, neutrons, radio‐nuclides), and Volume 80 on non‐ionizing radiation (extremely low‐frequency electromagnetic fields).

Info

Tips & Tricks for Starting (or Restarting) Low- Carb Pt I

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© Unknown
As anyone who has done it knows, getting started on a low-carb diet can be a little rough. Not for everyone, but for some. All too often these little front-end bumps in the road - coupled with the spirit of the times in which the well-intentioned but ignorant friends and relatives of low-carb dieters tell them their diet is going to croak their kidneys, clog their arteries and weaken their bones - can be enough to make many people abandon the most sincere efforts. Drawing on my almost 30 years of experience treating patients using the low-carb diet, I can give some tips and tricks for dealing with these difficult early days.

Comment: See also: Tips & tricks for starting (or restarting) low-carb Pt II


Health

More evidence for PTSD, heart disease link

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© Stock
New York - People with post-traumatic stress disorder may be at a higher risk for heart disease, according to researchers.

In a study of U.S. war veterans, they found that those with PTSD were more likely to have fatty buildup, or plaque, in the arteries leading to the heart, called coronary artery disease.

The disease had also progressed farther in the mentally troubled vets, and they were more likely to die of any cause over the next three and a half years than their peers.

Joseph Boscarino, an investigator at Geisinger Health System in Danville, Pennsylvania, told Reuters Health the new results confirm earlier findings.

Studies "keep showing this link between PTSD and various forms of cardiovascular disease," said Boscarino, who was not involved in the current work.

"Something needs to be done in terms of better interventions" for these individuals, he added.

Family

Low-carb diet again trumps low-fat on weight loss and other things

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Meat is good for you, particularly meat with lots of fat
While some see body weight as simply a function of the balance of the calories going into and out of the body, there is little doubt in my mind that this stance is becoming increasingly untenable. It is clear that body fat regulation is influenced by many factors, including levels of key hormones. A central player here is insulin - which encourages fat deposition. But other hormones worthy of mention include what are termed 'adipokines' (secreted by fat cells). One important adipokine is leptin. In March, I wrote a blog post dedicated to this substance which was inspired by the work of Dr Stephan Guyenet who writes the blog Whole Health Source.

Another adipokine that has received increasing attention in recent years is adiponectin. Like leptin, adiponectin has generally beneficial effects in the body. It, for instance, has anti-inflammatory effects and helps maintain 'insulin sensitivity'. Both of these effects would be expected to translate into a reduced risk of type 2 diabetes and heart disease. The actions of adiponectin in the body are believed to offer protection again these conditions, as well as others including obesity, 'fatty liver' and metabolic syndrome. In short: adiponectin is a good thing.