Health & WellnessS


Question

Genetically Modified Maize in Your Cornflakes?

Sean Poulter
Daily Mail
Mon, 21 Feb 2011 13:52 UTC
Image
Wheat growers and millers in America, fear that food crops will become contaminated with the GM maize.
Breakfast cereals, including corn flakes, bread and snacks are under threat after the US authorities approved the growing of a new GM maize.

The warning is significant because it comes from the North American Millers' Association, a food industry trade body, rather than green campaigners.

The new maize or corn has been genetically modified to be used to create ethanol, which is being promoted as a substitute for petrol.

However, wheat growers, food companies and millers in America, fear that food crops will become contaminated with the GM maize, which has been developed by biotech company Syngenta.

Comment: To learn more about the increasing contamination of Genetically Modified Organisms in the food supply read: Organic Farmers Report Increasing GMO Contamination with Corn

For more information about how to avoid GMO contamination and the negative health effects of GM foods read the following:

Top 10 Ways to Avoid GMOs
Why We Need Mandatory GMO Food Labels
What's to Know About GMO?
Health is the Tipping Point to Identify and Eliminate GMOs
The GMO Tipping Point

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Smoking

Study supports new theory for nicotine's protective effect against neurodegenerative disorders


University of South Florida Health
Mon, 15 Mar 2004 07:23 UTC
Image
© Unknown
While the health risks of tobacco are well known, several studies have shown that people with a history of cigarette smoking have lower rates of neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease. However, the explanations for nicotine's neuroprotective effects continue to be debated.

Now a team of neuroscientists at the University of South Florida College of Medicine presents new evidence of an anti-inflammatory mechanism in the brain by which nicotine may protect against nerve cell death. Their study was published today in the Journal of Neurochemistry.

In laboratory experiments, the researchers demonstrated that nicotine inhibits activation of brain immune cells known as microglia. Chronic microglial activation is a sign of brain inflammation that is a key step in nerve cell death. The researchers also identified the specific site, the alpha-7 acetylcholine receptor subtype, to which nicotine binds to block microglial activation.

"We propose that nicotine's ability to prevent overactivation of microglia may be additional mechanism underlying nicotine's neuroprotective properties in the brain," said USF neuroscientist R. Douglas Shytle, PhD, lead author of the study.

"This finding lets us explore a new way of looking at neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's," said Jun Tan, PhD, MD, principal investigator for the study. "A better understanding of the therapeutic aspects of nicotine may also help us develop drugs that mimic the beneficial action of nicotine without its unwanted side effects."
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Health

Study Finds Cellphone Use Alters Brain Activity


RedOrbit
Wed, 23 Feb 2011 08:10 UTC
Cellphone Usage
© RedOrbit

Speaking directly into a cellphone while holding it against your ear can alter brain activity in those areas closest to the device's antenna, claims a new study published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

Researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York studied 47 adults over the course of a year, using positron emission tomography (PET) to measure their glucose metabolism, or the amount of sugar it takes a cell to fuel activity, according to Shirley S. Wang of the Wall Street Journal.

"They conducted scans after subjects had cellphones held to their left and right sides for 50 minutes on two different days," she said. "The first day neither cellphone was turned on. The second day the right phone was activated but muted so the participants wouldn't hear any noise. Because the participants didn't know which phone was active, their expectations couldn't skew the results."

They discovered that areas of the brain that were closest to the antenna became "significantly more active" when an operational cellphone was held next to the ear, even when it wasn't used to conduct a conversation, according to Wang.

In fact, their glucose metabolism levels spiked an average of 8% to 10%, which is said to be comparable to the increase in metabolism in the visual cortex when speaking to someone, study author Dr. Nora Volkow told the Wall Street Journal.

What remains unclear is whether or not that alteration of brain activity can cause harm to the orbitofrontal cortex, which is the region affected by the cellphone activity.
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Display

Tech Overload Causing More Injuries in Youth

Samantha Murphy
TechNewsDaily
Wed, 23 Feb 2011 08:42 UTC
Image
© Unknown
Students are using laptop computers more in the classroom and in their free time to stay connected, but this jump doesn't come without consequences: Kids, teens and young adults are consequently complaining of musculoskeletal discomfort - including neck, back and shoulder pain.

According to a new study conducted by researchers at Boston University about laptop use and discomfort levels published in the journal Ergonomics earlier this month, more than 50 percent of university students said they already experience pain attributed to the computer. Meanwhile, one in seven said they experienced pain after working on a computer for just one hour.
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Health

UK: Millions of high blood pressure patients are wrongly diagnosed

Stephen Adams
The Telegraph
Wed, 23 Feb 2011 03:02 UTC
Patients suspected of having high blood pressure will in future be sent home with a monitor for 24 hours because millions of people are being wrongly diagnosed with the condition due to waiting room nerves.

Taking blood pressure
© GETTY
Currently, anyone suspected of having high blood pressure is diagnosed by a GP with an inflatable arm cuff. Doctors then call the patient back for additional readings, but these are always taken at their surgery or in hospital.

New draft guidance to be published today by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) says as many as one in four people experiences a surging pulse rate on entering a GP's surgery.

This nervous response, termed "white coat hypertension", can significantly raise blood pressure readings and many people are being misdiagnosed as a result.

To counter this, Nice is recommending that doctors do not rely solely on readings taken in their own surgeries. After the initial assessment, a patient should be sent home and asked to wear an ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM) device.

This comprises an inflated arm cuff, similar to those used in surgeries, which takes spot readings at intervals over a 24-hour period.
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Syringe

US: Parents lose high court appeal in vaccine case

Mark Sherman
The Associated Press
Tue, 22 Feb 2011 23:16 UTC
Wyeth vaccine
© AP Photo/Mike DererIn this Oct. 18, 2006 file photo, the lobby of the headquarters of pharmaceutical company Wyeth is shown in Madison, N.J. The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that a federal law bars lawsuits against drug makers over serious side effects from childhood vaccines. The vaccine was made by Wyeth, now owned by Pfizer, Inc.
The Supreme Court closed the courthouse door Tuesday to parents who want to sue drug makers over claims that their children developed autism and other serious health problems from vaccines. The ruling was a stinging defeat for families dissatisfied with how they fared before a special no-fault vaccine court.

The court voted 6-2 against the parents of a child who sued the drug maker Wyeth in Pennsylvania state court for the health problems they say their daughter, now 19, suffered from a vaccine she received in infancy.

Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the court, said Congress set up a special vaccine court in 1986 to handle such claims as a way to provide compensation to injured children without driving drug manufacturers from the vaccine market. The idea, he said, was to create a system that spares the drug companies the costs of defending against parents' lawsuits.

Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor dissented. Nothing in the 1986 law "remotely suggests that Congress intended such a result," Sotomayor wrote, taking issue with Scalia.

Scalia's opinion was the latest legal setback for parents who felt they got too little from the vaccine court or failed to collect at all.
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Cell Phone

Cell Phones Increase Brain Activity, Stir Fears

Courtney Hutchison
ABC
Tue, 22 Feb 2011 19:00 UTC
cell phone,radiation
© Unknown

Fears concerning the possible dangers of prolonged cell phone use won't go away, despite numerous studies showing no conclusive link between cell phones and brain tumors or cancer.

Now new data from the National Institutes of Health suggesting that cell phone radiation boosts brain activity is poised to stir the debate even further.

Researchers used PET scans to measure brain activity in 47 participants when they had cell phones held to their ears in both off and on but muted positions and found that exposure to an in-use cell phone for more than 50 minutes increased brain activity by about 7 percent in the regions closes to the antenna.
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Beaker

Vitamin D - Propaganda vs Prophylaxsis

Dr Allan Spreen
healthiertalk.com
Tue, 22 Feb 2011 17:55 UTC
You've probably heard about the bad rap vitamin D has been getting lately. The argument goes something like this... the vitamin D crisis isn't as bad as we thought. You probably don't need as much of it as we thought. But it's a free country. So go ahead and take 400 IU of it per day, if you want. That's more than enough. Just don't go over 4,000 IU per day. "High doses" like that can increase your risk for "harm"

These new guidelines come from the U.S. Institute of Medicine (or IOM), a powerful non-profit agency that advises the nation of matters of health. But here's the problem: Their report is pure propaganda.

In fact, I believe these low doses of vitamin D are a deliberate attempt to keep the American public needing more drugs until the day they die. (I'll admit, that sounds a tad paranoid. But I'll explain why my paranoia is well-founded a moment.)
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Light Saber

UK: Monsanto agrees to clean up toxic chemicals in South Wales quarry

Tom Levitt
The Ecologist
Mon, 21 Feb 2011 05:27 UTC
Monsanto has agreed to help clean-up a quarry in South Wales it is accused of polluting with a cocktail of toxic substances despite consistently refusing to accept liability, the Ecologist can reveal.

But the taxpayer could still end up meeting the estimated £2 million clean-up bill.

Waste from a Monsanto-owned plant in Newport was dumped at the Brofiscin quarry, near the village of Groesfaen, in the 1960s and 70s. Investigations since have revealed the site is heavily polluted with dangerous toxins leaking from corroding waste containers buried underground.

There are fears a major underground aquifer, which could in future supply nearby Cardiff, may be at risk of pollution from chemicals leaching from the waste. Toxins in the air and ground vapour have also recently been detected at the site.

The Environment Agency took over responsibility for cleaning up the site in 2005 but has been accused in an Ecologist investigation of failing to pursue Monsanto for its role in the pollution. In an otherwise unpublicised statement published on its website recently it now says Monsanto has been identified as one of those companies that 'should be held responsible under the contaminated land laws and be held liable for the cost of remediating Brofiscin Quarry.'
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Health

Swine Flu Epidemic in Greece Claims 99 Lives


novanite.com
Tue, 22 Feb 2011 17:07 UTC
swine flu jab
© EPA/BGNES A man is vaccinated against H1N1 virus, at a hospital in Athens, Greece.
Greek authorities have issued a warning about swine flu epidemic, which has already claimed the lives of 99 people, local media reported.

Another 127 people affected with swine flu have been hospitalized in intensive care with confirmed symptoms.

Greek epidemiologists have forecast that the number of people affected with the A(H1N1) virus this year would be double the number from last year, which was 149.

According to health officials in Greece, the elderly are more at risk of getting infected, but young individuals can also catch the virus.

In Bulgaria, one person died from swine flu in December 2010.
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