Health & WellnessS


Pills

The pseudoscience of modern psychiatry - manufacturing madness

Gary Null, PhD
Green Med Info
Wed, 02 Apr 2014 20:00 UTC
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© Greenmedinfo
Twenty-six years have passed since Prozac, the antidepressant drug, was introduced to the US market and quickly achieved the label of a "wonder drug." In the decade that followed, other antidepressant drugs including paroxetine (Paxil), sertraline (Zoloft), fluvoxamine (Luvox), and citalopram (Celexa) would be released, creating an entire class of medications known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). Since hitting the shelves, the popularity of SSRIs has skyrocketed. Today, 1 in every 10 Americans reaches for antidepressants daily.[1] This ratio jumps to an incredible 25% among women between the ages of 40 and 59.[2] Approximately 5% of children ages 12 to 19 are also taking antidepressants.[3] Worldwide, mental illness is now the leading cause of disability among children.[4]

Active members and veterans of the US military have become especially dependent on psychiatric meds. Today, about 1 in 6 service members is using antidepressants, sedatives, and other psychiatric drugs in an attempt to cope with post traumatic stress disorder and other afflictions.[5] From 2001-2009 alone, psychiatric drug use in this demographic rose by 76% and in 2010 alone, the Pentagon spent more than $280 million on psychiatric drugs.[6] [7]
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Attention

Allergies exacerbated by stress: research


AAP
Fri, 04 Apr 2014 10:00 UTC
Stress
Allergy sufferers are more likely to experience flare-ups if they are stressed, research suggests.

Feeling stressed - including by allergy symptoms themselves - can have an impact on how many times people have an attack, it found.

Experts at Ohio State University in the US analysed 179 patients for a period of 12 weeks.

Of this group, 39 per cent had more than one allergy flare-up and were found to be the ones suffering the most stress.

Among those who were stressed, 64 per cent had more than four flare-ups over two 14-day periods.

A number of sufferers reported allergy flare-ups within days of increased daily stress, the study found.
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Pocket Knife

New Zealand academic questions circumcision study


AAP
Thu, 03 Apr 2014 07:00 UTC
Babies
A New Zealand academic says the authors of a study suggesting male circumcision has major health benefits have confused cleanliness with godliness.

The study of American data suggested half of uncircumcised men would contract an adverse medical condition caused by their foreskin during their life, and that the benefits of circumcision exceeded the risks by 100 to one.

Professor Brian Morris of the University of Sydney said infant circumcision should be regarded as equivalent to childhood vaccination, and as such it would be unethical not to routinely offer parents circumcision for their baby boy.

But Professor Kevin Pringle, the Professor of Paediatrics and Head of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of Otago in Wellington, says he found the paper extremely worrying.

Prof Pringle says the report quotes a more than 20-fold increase in the risk of penile cancer for uncircumcised men, but the figures didn't agree.
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Stop

Surgery study changes aspirin advice


AAP
Thu, 03 Apr 2014 13:30 UTC
Asprin
Taking aspirin before non-cardiac surgery does most patients more harm than good, says an anaesthetist involved in a 23-country study.
It does not prevent heart attacks and it causes bleeding, Professor Kate Leslie says.

Millions of people in New Zealand and Australia have non-cardiac surgery every year and, until now, about 20 per cent have been advised to take aspirin.

This is a dramatic change and will lead to new medical guidelines, says Prof Leslie, who led the Australian part of the 10,000-patient study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
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Pills

Rare skin infection spreads in New York City; 66 cases reported


CBS News - New York
Thu, 03 Apr 2014 12:00 UTC
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© AP/Health DepartmentAt inset, what the infection looks like
The number of New Yorkers suspected of having a rare skin infection that comes from handling raw seafood, causing skin lesions, pain and swelling to the hands and arms and even difficulty moving fingers, has more than doubled, officials said Wednesday.

The department said the number of reported cases has surged to 66, up from 30 last month.

Health officials are warning those who purchase raw fish and seafood at Chinatowns in Manhattan, Queens or Brooklyn to wear waterproof gloves when handling those items, and to seek medical care if they discover red bumps on hands or arms.
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Horse

Ketamine (horse tranquilizer) could cure severe depression

Sarah Knapton
The Telegraph
Thu, 03 Apr 2014 01:54 UTC
depression
© ALAMYKetamine could help people with severe depression
Scientists at Oxford University have found that the drug Ketamine can cure severe depression even in people who have stopped responding to other anti-depressants.

Horse tranquilliser Ketamine can cure people who have battled severe depression for 20 years, researchers at Oxford University have found.

Sufferers who had failed to respond to anti-depressants like Prozac reported 'feeling themselves again' after decades of misery, just days after intravenous infusions of the class 2 drug.

And relatives told doctors it was like having the sufferer 'back again.'
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Alarm Clock

Gut-Wrenching: New studies reveal the insidious effects of Glyphosate

Pamela Coleman, PhD
The Cornucopia Institute
Wed, 26 Mar 2014 19:22 UTC
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© Tim McCabe, USDA NRCS
Glyphosate is the active ingredient in one of the most heavily used herbicide in the world: Monsanto's Roundup®. The industry claims that Roundup® is quite safe, but authors of a recent article in the scientific journal Entropy reach a very different conclusion:

"Contrary to the current widely-held misconception that glyphosate is relatively harmless to humans, the available evidence shows that glyphosate may rather be the most important factor in the development of multiple chronic diseases and conditions that have become prevalent in Westernized societies."[i]

This is a bold assertion. Is it possible that we are only now realizing the harmful effects of this herbicide that has been in common use since the 1970s? How does glyphosate harm humans? How did we overlook these problems for decades? Read on.
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Cut

Eliminating MSG: Mother reverses autism symptoms in daughter

Julie Wilson
Natural News
Wed, 02 Apr 2014 18:56 UTC
Image
A biochemist located in the San Francisco Bay Area believes that she has drastically improved, if not cured, her daughter's autism through eliminating monosodium glutamate, or MSG, from her diet.

Katherine Reid, Ph.D., says her daughter Brooke began exhibiting symptoms of autism at age two. Brooke's communication capabilities were far below average, and she failed to develop normal human connections. She also suffered from tantrums and digestive complications including constipation.

Dr. Reid's husband, a cellular biologist, became suspicious of his daughter's symptoms and began researching, only to find that Brooke was showing nearly every characteristic of autism. After seeing their pediatrician, who also agreed that something was wrong, the family hired a psychologist to test Brooke's learning abilities. The results were devastating in that they showed that she suffered immensely from severe learning disabilities, ultimately diagnosing her with moderate autism.

Comment: Learn more on how to avoid being secretly poisoned by MSG:

MSG is Where You Least Expect It
Avoiding MSG is Trickier Than You Think
MSG: The Flavor Enhancer That Sickens In Two Ways
Protect Yourself from MSG and Aspartame Excitotoxicity
MSG Hidden in Variety of Foods and Contributing To Illness
MSG Lurks As A Slow Poison In Common Food Items Without Your Knowledge
Hold the MSG: Food Triggers for Epilepsy and Other Neurological Illnesses
MSG is being sprayed right on fruits, nuts, seeds, grains, and vegetables as they grow -- even those used in baby food

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Roses

Ebola outbreak kills 83 in Guinea; spread unprecedented

Simeon Bennett and Ougna Camara
Bloomberg News
Tue, 01 Apr 2014 20:37 UTC
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© Cellou Binani/AFP via Getty ImagesTwo members of the Guinean Red Cross, in protective gear, arrive on March 31, 2014 to evacuate the bodies of two people who died from the Ebola virus in an isolation ward at the Donka hospital in Conakry, Guinea.
The death toll from the worst Ebola outbreak in seven years climbed to 83 in Guinea as the aid organization Doctors Without Borders said the disease's geographical spread marks the flare-up as unprecedented.

In neighboring Liberia, one of two confirmed cases has died, while a second person who died with a suspected Ebola infection tested negative for the virus, the World Health Organization said in a statement. Both confirmed cases in Liberia were exposed to Ebola in Guinea, Gregory Hartl, a WHO spokesman, said on Twitter.

The outbreak is the first in Guinea, which reported five new cases, raising the total to 127 suspected or confirmed illnesses, Tarik Jasarevic, a WHO spokesman in Guinea, said today. The pattern of infection, with patients found in the coastal capital of Conakry as well as villages in the country's southern area, marks this outbreak as different, according to Mariano Lugli of Doctors Without Borders.
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Bacon n Eggs

Study: Vegetarians are less healthy and have a lower quality of life than meat-eaters

Benjamin Fearnow
atlanta.cbslocal.com
Tue, 01 Apr 2014 14:35 UTC
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© David McNew/Getty ImagesVegetarians have a lower BMI and drink alcohol sparingly, but vegetarian diets are tied to generally poorer health, poorer quality of life and a higher need for health care than their meat-eating counterparts.
Vegetarians may have a lower BMI and drink alcohol sparingly, but vegetarian diets are tied to generally poorer health, poorer quality of life and a higher need for health care than their meat-eating counterparts.

A new study from the Medical University of Graz in Austria finds that vegetarians are more physically active, drink less alcohol and smoke less tobacco than those who consume meat in their diets. Vegetarians also have a higher socioeconomic status and a lower body mass index. But the vegetarian diet - characterized by a low consumption of saturated fats and cholesterol that includes increased intake of fruits, vegetables and whole-grain products - carries elevated risks of cancer, allergies and mental health disorders.

Vegetarians were twice as likely to have allergies, a 50 percent increase in heart attacks and a 50 percent increase in incidences of cancer.
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