Despite great strides in prevention and treatment, cancer rates remain stubbornly high and may soon surpass heart disease as the leading cause of death in the United States. Increasingly, we and many other experts believe that an important culprit may be our own medical practices: We are silently irradiating ourselves to death.

The use of medical imaging with high-dose radiation - CT scans in particular - has soared in the last 20 years. Our resulting exposure to medical radiation has increased more than sixfold between the 1980s and 2006, according to the National Council on Radiation Protection & Measurements. The radiation doses of CT scans (a series of X-ray images from multiple angles) are 100 to 1,000 times higher than conventional X-rays.

Of course, early diagnosis thanks to medical imaging can be lifesaving. But there is distressingly little evidence of better health outcomes associated with the current high rate of scans. There is, however, evidence of its harms.

Gluten sensitivity is currently estimated to affect as many as 18 million Americans.^[1] Reactions to gluten, a protein found in wheat, rye, and barley, are becoming increasingly common. Gluten sensitivity can range in severity from mild discomfort, such as gas and bloating, to celiac disease, a serious autoimmune condition that can, if undiagnosed, result in a 4-fold increase in death.^[2] Genetics alone cannot explain the rapid rise in gluten-related disorders, and experts believe that there must be an environmental trigger. There continues to be much debate about what that environmental trigger may be.

Some assert that a higher gluten content of modern wheat is to blame for the rising prevalence of gluten-related disorders.^[3] But a 2013 review of data commissioned by the United States Department of Agriculture found no evidence to support this.^[4] Others blame increased consumption of wheat overall,^[4] age of wheat introduction,^[5] cesarean birth,^[6] breastfeeding duration,^[7] or alterations in intestinal microflora.^[8] All of these do offer some explanation, but they cannot completely account for the drastic increase in gluten sensitivities that we have seen in recent years.

Another possible environmental trigger may be the introduction of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) to the American food supply, which occurred in the mid-1990s. GMOs are created by a laboratory process that transfers genetic material into the DNA of an organism. There are nine genetically modified (GM) food crops currently on the market: soy, corn, cotton (oil), canola (oil), sugar from sugar beets, zucchini, yellow squash, Hawaiian papaya, and alfalfa. Notice that wheat is not one of these. Although wheat has been hybridized through natural breeding techniques over the years, it is not in fact a GMO.

Apparently GMOs are so awesome and wonderful, the companies that sell them are doing everything they can to keep people from knowing it.

The Organic Consumers Association is reporting that the Grocery Manufacturer's Association - the mega lobby group that represents 300+ companies and much more than just grocery stores - is using a leaked talking points memo to basically misinform and intimidate our legislators with threats of lawsuits should they even attempt to back a GMO labeling law in their state.

This is the same organization that is petitioning to allow GMOs to be considered "natural" on food packaging, and the same group that is trying to get a weak voluntary federal law passed to preempt the adoption of any meaningful labeling legislation at the state level.

And even the association admits that 80% of the food consumed in the United States is genetically modified. (Not sure how they know that, considering it isn't labeled...).

Would you feed your family a meal made with condemned beef? Or spray the children's tea with rancid fat collected from a deep-fat fryer? Or serve biscuits made with empty grain hulls swept from a factory floor?

Because that's what we do to our dogs.

The unpalatable truth is that if you give your dog processed dog food - dried, tinned or in a pouch - you may be feeding them substances that cause them serious, possibly fatal, harm.

In a Channel 5 documentary this week, I am one of a number of canine nutrition experts who accuse the big dog food manufacturers of knowingly shortening the lives of millions of dogs a year.

The big businesses selling us processed dog food use ingredients unsuitable for human consumption - and unsuitable, in my view, for canine consumption.

They make vast profits from something that would otherwise be thrown away. It is a consumer scandal waiting to happen.

We all know there is a connection between our diet and health. The same applies to dogs, and every other species on the planet. But what is the best, most biologically appropriate diet for dogs?

The diet your dog should be eating is that of a grey wolf in the wild. If you dissect a dog and a grey wolf you'll find that their digestive systems are identical. The two animals are essentially the same species and so closely related that they can interbreed.

Grey wolves live on prey such as deer, rabbits and mice, and eat everything including the bones, from which they get about a third of their nutrition. They also eat fruit and vegetables.

In short, their diet consists of raw meat, raw bones and raw herbage. This, then, is the diet that allows dogs to achieve optimum health and longevity.

From a purely physiological perspective, the heart is essentially a bag of muscle that pumps blood around the body. In certain circumstances, the heart's pumping action can weaken, ultimately resulting in what is usually termed 'heart failure'. Symptoms of this can include fatigue, breathlessness and fluid retention.

I was interested in a study recently published in the journal Cardiology that assessed the relationship between LDL-cholesterol levels and health outcomes in a group of 212 elderly individuals with known heart failure [1]. These individuals were split into 3 groups according to their LDL-cholesterol levels.

1. < 90 mg/dl
2. 90-115 mg/dl (2.3-3.0 mmol/l)
3. >115 mg/dl

Over an average of 3.7 years, the individuals in the 1st group (with then lowest LDL levels) fared worst. Those in group 3 (with the highest LDL levels) fared the best. 58 per cent of people in group 3 lived at least 50 months compared to just 34 per cent in group 1. These results were in spite of the fact that at the start of the study this group had a disproportionate number of people with severe heart failure in it.

Oh, if I had a dollar for every time I scoffed at someone going on a gluten-free diet because it was "the thing" to do. For people with celiac disease, eating wheat can be a matter of life and death; good health and bad. But why would someone give up the goodness of wheat and baked goods just because Elizabeth Hasselback said it was cool? Ha!

And then I had to give up wheat. Cue the retractions (and the tears).

After years and years of preaching to "make half your grains whole" as a dietitian, and claiming that wheat wasn't bad for you as long as it wasn't processed, I've had to change my tune based on personal experience, and admit that it just may be true that wheat is killing us.

It'd been suggested to me before by a doctor or 2 that I may have a gluten sensitivity, but I adamantly refused to fall for it. I'd had the test for celiac disease and it was negative, so clearly I was immune to this problem with what the whole world seemed to be rapidly discovering. Then, my son was born with a wheat allergy (among other food allergies). I didn't hesitate to raid the pantry and rid it of all of its wheat contents to protect my son's health. This is the part where I'm supposed to tell this amazing story of how much better I suddenly felt, and how much better my health was. But, that didn't happen. What happened is, I started eating it again and quickly started feeling like crap. Much to my dismay, I cut it out again under doctor's orders and slowly but surely began to feel better again.

"She has a remarkable ability to engage in a task. We use her as a model for the other kids, to show them what we want out of the journaling project," said my daughter's nursery school teachers as we sat together on diminutive, paint-splotched furniture. Rather than feeling self-satisfaction at her stellar "performance," my mind wandered to the greater issue at hand here: what is happening to children, how are we being manipulated by industry to interpret it, and how can awareness be raised around better solutions other than ADHD medications for kids.

A candid and uncharacteristically provocative piece entitled the Selling of Attention Deficit Disorder ran in the NY Times, as part of an effort to raise this awareness. The article discusses the making of an epidemic, much as Robert Whitaker, author of Anatomy of an Epidemic and host of Mad in America, has in his efforts to expose the manufacturing of a profit-driven machine into which our children are being fed. The Times article begins with a bird's eye view of the alarming statistics:

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that the diagnosis had been made in 15 percent of high school-age children, and that the number of children on medication for the disorder had soared to 3.5 million from 600,000 in 1990.

And goes on to state that,

Behind that growth has been drug company marketing that has stretched the image of classic A.D.H.D. to include relatively normal behavior like carelessness and impatience, and has often overstated the pills' benefits.

As far back as 1954, reports of the full or partial resolution of schizophrenia following a gluten free diet began to surface in the medical literature. We covered this remarkable pattern of associations in a previous article titled, "60 Years of Research Links Gluten Grains to Schizophrenia." While the explanation for this intriguing connection has remained focused on the disruption of the gut-brain axis and the presence in wheat of a wide range of pharmacologically active and mostly opioid receptor modulating polypeptides, a new and possibly more disturbing explanation is beginning to surface: wheat consumption cuts off blood flow to the brain.

Starting with a 1997 case study published in the Journal of Internal Medicine involving a 33-year-old patient, with pre-existing diagnosis of 'schizophrenic' disorder, who first came to medical attention for severe diarrhea and weight loss (classical symptoms of gluten intolerance), brain scan technology determined that cerebral hypoperfusion (decreased blood flow to the brain) was occurring within the patient's frontal cortex.[i] A gluten free diet resulted not only in the normalization of intestinal damage and autoantibodies, but the return of blood flow to the frontal cortex, and the resolution of schizophrenic symptoms.

Then, in 2004, a follow up study was performed to verify if the 1997 case study was just a fluke, or perhaps a widespread effect of untreated celiac disease. Published in the American Journal of Medicine, researchers from the Institute of Internal Medicine, Catholic University, Rome, Italy, compared 15 untreated celiac patients without neurological or psychiatric disorders other than anxiety or depression, with 15 celiac patients who were on a gluten-free diet for almost 1 year, and 24 healthy volunteers of similar sex and age. All subjects underwent cerebral single photon emission computed tomography examination.

The Dutch health watchdog said Wednesday it had halted distribution of 690 tonnes of meat from an abattoir after a probe found traces of horse in products marked as beef.

"During a criminal investigation... horse DNA was discovered in four samples of beef from the wholesaler," the food safety authority NVWA said in statement.

The investigation also found that the abattoir and wholesaler situated in the central town of Dodewaard "bought more horses than its book indicated were slaughtered."

"All meat, some 690 tonnes stored in the abattoir's fridges, has been blocked (from sale) until they can show its origin," the NVWA said.

It gave the business, named by Dutch media as Van Hattem Vlees, until next Monday to comply.

Last year, the NVWA arrested a Dutch butcher believed to be the kingpin in a Europe-wide scandal in which horse meat was passed off as beef.

New York - The question of virginity is back in the news again after a controversial New York Times piece about extra-virgin olive oil and whether consumers are getting true value from the costly kitchen condiment.

The controversy started after a New York Times online interactive feature by Nicholas Blechman, in which he detailed the way today's olive oil is imported to Italy from countries such as Tunisia, cut with soy and other oils, mixed with beta-carotene and chlorophyll to mask taste and add color, and exported around the world to be shelved as Made-in-Italy "extra-virgin" olive oil - a label that designates the olives are pressed into oil within hours of being harvested.

Olive oil has been a valuable commodity for centuries, predating oils that are more treasured today - such as crude, which is the base for most of our energy needs. Through the centuries, olive oil has been used to cook our meals, light our paths, moisturize our skin, shine our hair, grease our machinery and it's even been traded for other things we've wanted to acquire.

How valuable is olive oil? If you were to compare today's market price of olive oil to the market price for crude, olive oil is almost five times more expensive. This could account for some producers' cutting costs by "cutting" the real stuff with less-expensive edible oils, and then passing it off as authentic in order to realize a healthy profit.