Found everywhere as an additive in your food, new research has uncovered that this "flavor enhancer" is extremely toxic, causing a battery of adverse health effects within normal dietary ranges.

A new study published in the Journal of Headache Pain reveals that a single intake of monosodium glutamate (MSG) produces headache in the majority of healthy subjects tested.^[i]

The researchers conducted a double-blinded, placebo-controlled, crossover study to examine the effect of repeated MSG intake on the following:

• Spontaneous pain
• Mechanical sensitivity of masticatory muscles (the four muscles that move the jaw laterally)
• Side effects
• Blood pressure

A dog owner says she owes her life to her Doberman after he detected a tumor in her breast. Diane Papazian, from New York, says Troy persistently nuzzled into her breast when he was just a four-month-old puppy.

Mrs Papazian then realised Troy was showing an interest in a lump and decided to go for a mammogram - despite having had one just six months earlier.

As a result, she was diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer. Mrs Papazian, 56, went on to have a double mastectomy and chemotherapy and is now cancer-free. Troy, a show dog, is currently the number one Doberman in New York State and ranks ninth in the U.S.

It's over. The debate is settled.

It's sugar, not fat, that causes heart attacks.

Oops. Fifty years of doctors' advice and government eating guidelines have been wrong. We've been told to swap eggs for Cheerios. But that recommendation is dead wrong. In fact, it's very likely that this bad advice has killed millions of Americans.

A rigorously new study shows that those with the highest sugar intake had a four-fold increase in their risk of heart attacks compared to those with the lowest intakes. That's 400%! Just one 20-ounce soda increases your risk of a heart attack by about 30%.

This study of more than 40,000 people, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, accounted for all other potential risk factors including total calories, overall diet quality, smoking, cholesterol, high blood pressure, obesity and alcohol.

This follows on the heels of decades of research that has been mostly ignored by the medical establishment and policy makers. In fact, the Institute of Medicine recommends getting no more than 25% of your total calories from added sugar. Really?? This study showed that your risk of heart attacks doubles if sugar makes up 20% of your calories.

Yet more than 70% of Americans consume 10% of their daily calories from sugar. And about 10% of Americans consume one in every four of their calories from sugar.

A Northern California company is recalling more than 8.7 million pounds of beef products because it processed diseased and unhealthy animals without a full federal inspection, federal officials said Saturday.

That's just over a year's worth of meat products processed by Rancho Feeding Corp., which has been under scrutiny by the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service. The agency said that without full inspection, the recalled products are unfit for human consumption.

The products were processed from Jan. 1, 2013, through Jan. 7, 2014, and shipped to distribution centers and retail stores in California, Florida, Illinois and Texas. They include beef carcasses, oxtail, liver, cheeks, tripe, tongue and veal bones.

Last month the company recalled more than 40,000 pounds of meat products produced on Jan. 8 that also didn't undergo a full inspection.

A strange kidney ailment leaves scientists searching for answers.
Ed Kashi arrived in Nicaragua last January to shoot some photos for a local nonprofit organization. At the time, it seemed like just another two-week commission - no different from the countless others he's completed during his career as a far-flung photojournalist - but what he saw there stuck with him for much longer.

"Literally every single day I was there, there was a funeral," says Kashi, who is based in New Jersey and works for VII Photo. "It was astounding, actually."

The funerals he saw were not for slain soldiers or elderly villagers, but for young sugarcane field workers - mostly men - who had died from chronic kidney disease, or CKD. This debilitating renal disease has, over the past few years, killed thousands of agrarian workers across Central America and parts of south Asia. The disease itself is hardly a new phenomenon, though the strain affecting Nicaragua and neighboring countries is unique; many of those affected are far younger and healthier than typical CKD patients, and a staggering number work in sugarcane fields. And while theories and hypotheses abound, scientists have yet to figure out what's actually causing it.
It's not clear when CKD began killing field workers in Central America, though reports suggest that it dates back at least 20 years. There are no reliable data on mortality rates, either, but experts estimate that the disease has killed thousands - perhaps tens of thousands - within the past decade. Cases among sugarcane workers have been reported along the Pacific coast of Central America, while similar cases involving rice farmers have been reported in Sri Lanka and India. The disease has been especially devastating in the low-income countries of El Salvador and Nicaragua, where many workers rely on subsistence wages from sugar plantations to provide for their families.

American livestock is pumped full of harmful drugs, making our food dangerous and cruel at the same time.

Most people are aware of Big Pharma, thanks to its advertising, but few are aware of Animal Pharma, the animal drug divisions within drug companies that sell livestock drugs by the ton. Unlike people Pharma, many Animal Pharma drugs do not require a prescription or a veterinarian and the hormones, growth promoters, feed additives and antiparasite and antifungal drugs are loosely regulated and monitored. The USDA tests for residues from the drugs in meat, poultry and egg products but repeat offender farms that release animals with violative drug residues into the human food supply are identified weekly.

Among the drugs found in beef released to the public in a USDA Inspector General report were penicillin, the antibiotics florfenicol, sulfamethazine and sulfadimethoxine, the antiparasite drug ivermectin, the nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug flunixin and heavy metals. Some drug-contaminated meat was released into the human food supply and there was no attempt at a recall, says the report.

The highest of all veterinary drug residues are found in bob veal (calves under three days old that weigh only 70 to 100 pounds) says the USDA Inspector General report, because "Farmers are prohibited from selling milk for human consumption from cows that have been medicated with antibiotics (as well as other drugs) until the withdrawal period is over; so instead of just disposing of this tainted milk, producers feed it to their calves. When the calves are slaughtered, the drug residue from the feed or milk remains in their meat, which is then sold to consumers." Meat from bob calves is put into "value added" veal products like veal sausages and breaded veal patties.

Is there any other food that is so dangerous and cruel at the same time?

The manufacturer of a blood-thinning drug tried to hide results of an internal study that the manufacturer feared would hurt sales of the widely-advertised medication, according to recently-unsealed court documents.

Boehringer Ingelheim, manufacturer of Pradaxa, is being sued by patients and their families, charging it failed to properly warn users about possible dangers of the drug. More than 1,000 of those using Pradaxa have died from bleeding, Katie Thomas of The New York Times reported.

Some of the papers released by Chief Judge David R. Herndon of the United States District Court in East St. Louis, Ill., indicated that a research paper would contradict the company's claims that regular blood monitoring is not necessary while taking Pradaxa.

The lack of regular monitoring is one of the main selling points of the drug over warfarin, a drug long used in the prevention of blood clots and strokes. Warfarin requires frequent blood monitoring and attention to diet.

Boehringer Ingelheim emails released by the court show concern about the effect a change in recommended monitoring would have on sales of Pradaxa. "This may not be a onetime test and could result in a more complex message (regular monitoring), and a weaker value proposition ... vs. competitors," one employee wrote.

An email from another employee expressed concern about the drug's safety risks in older patients, and said "there may be a role" for one or two blood tests in Pradaxa patients.

The case highlights the fact that much of the research on drugs is performed by the drug makers themselves, who have a financial interest in ensuring their products are approved by regulators.

If you're feeling completely confused about whether you should cut fat from your diet, you are not alone. But here's the bottom line: fat does not make you fat or sick.

So, why do so many people believe that fat is bad for you and causes heart attacks? This all started in the Dr. Key's Seven Countries Study decades ago that examined heart risk based on lifestyle and dietary habits. He found that in the countries where people ate more fat - especially saturated fat - there were more cases of heart disease, and he concluded that the fat caused the disease. But here's the problem with this study: correlation is not causation. Just because both fat intake and heart disease were higher among the same population doesn't mean the heart disease was caused by the fat consumption. Here's another way to look at it: Every day, you wake up and the sun comes up, but although these events happen at the same time, you waking up doesn't cause the sun to come up.

While the Grocery Manufacturer's Association, along with Monsanto and other poison makers try to slip a labeling-by-choice campaign past citizens in the US, Russia is preparing a bill that would heavily restrict the import of genetically modified agricultural produce, as well as stop it altogether from being produced domestically.

The initiative is backed by the parliamentary majority, and is an amendment to the existing law "On Safety and Quality of Alimentary Products," which sets norms for the maximum content of transgenic and genetically modified components in Russia's food. The author of the bill is Evgeny Fyodorov, a member of the United Russia party. A group called Russian Sovereignty also supports the initiative. Some are calling this a long shot, but if it were to pass, it could be another nail in the Biotech industry's coffin.

The innovative draft law does not suppose a total ban, says Mr. Fyodorov, but it does put imports under the government's control and keeps it from being grown locally. Imported products that were tested with high levels of transgenic and genetically modified ingredients would be subject to refusal.

Russia already banned some GMO imports such as Monsanto's GMO corn, and Russia already has a labeling law. Anything that contains more than 0.9 percent GMO has to have a label and warn consumers. Last year a resolution was passed which requires a listing of all genetically modified plants in the state, but it doesn't go into effect until this July. Fyodorov wants to make that a zero tolerance policy for all foodstuffs produced in country. The draft includes a ban on GMO plants, animals, or anything of microbial origin, which is good thinking since AquaBounty's GMO salmon almost made it into our food supply already.

The average Briton gets six-and-a-half hours' sleep a night, according to the Sleep Council. Michael Mosley took part in an unusual experiment to see if this is enough.

It has been known for some time that the amount of sleep people get has, on average, declined over the years.

This has happened for a whole range of reasons, not least because we live in a culture where people are encouraged to think of sleep as a luxury - something you can easily cut back on. After all, that's what caffeine is for - to jolt you back into life. But while the average amount of sleep we are getting has fallen, rates of obesity and diabetes have soared. Could the two be connected?