Health & WellnessS


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Out of Mind, Out of Sight: Blinking Eyes Indicate Mind Wandering


ScienceDaily
Thu, 29 Apr 2010 12:00 UTC
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© Getty Images
When your mind wanders, you're not paying attention to what's going in front of you. A new study suggests that it's not just the mind, it's the body, too; when subjects' minds wandered, they blinked more, setting up a tiny physical barrier between themselves and the outside world.

Cognitive neuroscientist Daniel Smilek, of the University of Waterloo, studies how people pay attention -- and don't. For this study, he was inspired by brain research that shows, when the mind wanders, the parts of the brain that process external goings-on are less active. "And we thought, OK, if that's the case, maybe we'd see that the body would start to do things to prevent the brain from receiving external information," Smilek says. "The simplest thing that might happen is you might close your eyes more."

So, Smilek and his colleagues, Jonathan S.A. Carriere and J. Allan Cheyne, also of the University of Waterloo, set out to look at how often people blink when their mind wanders.
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Attention

Be Aware of the Most Common Over-the-Counter and Prescribed Killer Drugs

Paul Fassa
NaturalNews
Fri, 30 Apr 2010 10:35 UTC
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© CreativeLoafing
It has been confirmed that correctly prescribed pharmaceuticals rank among the five highest causes of death in the USA, and that the U.S. medical system is responsible for more deaths in the USA than anything else! And what dangerous ingredient is common to both prescription painkillers and over the counter (OTC) cold remedies and painkillers?

Acetaminophen. It is in over 100 OTC pain pills and other cold remedies, including cold, cough, and fever remedies for children.

What's Wrong With Acetaminophen

As reported in a recent Natural News article on glutathione, hospital emergency (ERs) carry a rapid glutathione booster pharmaceutical N-acetylcysteine (NAC), for acetaminophen poisoning. It has to be in ERs because acetaminophen liver poisoning happens often! The acetaminophen destroys glutathione and the liver goes into extreme stress, sometimes causing death.
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Bad Guys

Corruption: USDA Looks Out Only for Self Interests

Aaron Turpen
NaturalNews
Fri, 30 Apr 2010 00:00 UTC
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© USDA
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) was created in 1889 and has the stated mission of providing for the health and safety of American agriculture while promoting good agricultural practice. It has devolved into an organization whose primary purpose appears to be to protect and defend Big Agribusiness and the profits it brings while ignoring the safety and health concerns it causes.

The latest in the saga of corruption and conflicts of interest to beset the U.S. government's agricultural oligarchy is President Obama's appointment of Islam Siddiqui as chief agricultural negotiator for the U.S. trade representative.[1] Siddiqui was appointed in a sidestepping maneuver that went around Congress, despite serious concern expressed by citizens, small farm advocates, and organic growers.

Siddiqui is not new to the government game. He was undersecretary in charge of the marketing and regulatory programs of the USDA's organic labeling standards. These are the same standards that allowed genetically modified (GMO) crops, irradiated foods, and worse to be labeled as "organic." He also worked hard to convince the European Union to accept both hormone-treated beef and GMO crops.
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Activated Charcoal Fights Heart Disease in Kidney Patients

David Gutierrez
NaturalNews
Fri, 30 Apr 2010 00:00 UTC
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© Ambrosia RemediesActivated Charcoal
Activated charcoal may reduce the risk of heart disease in patients with kidney disease, according to a study conducted by researchers from Vanderbilt University and presented at the 42nd Annual Meeting and Scientific Exposition of the American Society of Nephrology.

"We found that oral activated charcoal lessens atherosclerotic lesions in experimental mice with kidney damage," researcher Valentina Kon said. "This is especially important because there is no effective treatment to reduce the high rate of cardiovascular mortality in patients with end-stage renal disease."

Patients with advanced kidney disease suffer a significantly elevated risk of developing hardened arteries (atherosclerosis), as well as a heightened risk of death from cardiovascular disease.

Charcoal has a long history of use as a poison antidote, due to its ability to bind to molecules (adsorption) and remove them from the body. In modern times, activated charcoal -- designed to have a larger surface area and correspondingly higher adsorption capability -- has shown benefits far beyond poison control.
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Many Soy Veggie Burgers Contain Toxic Hexane

Ethan Huff
NaturalNews
Fri, 30 Apr 2010 00:00 UTC
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© Chris Campbell/Flickr
A recent study put out by the Cornucopia Institute (CI) explains the truth behind most processed soy products that are sold as health foods. Many veggie burgers, which are often touted by soy-enthusiasts as being healthier than meat, are actually made from highly processed soybeans that have undergone treatment with hexane, an EPA-registered air pollutant and neurotoxin.

Soy is a fairly recent phenomenon on the American landscape, having emerged as an alleged health food within the past several decades and growing in popularity to epic proportions. Truthfully, soy is merely a cheap crop that industrial agriculture can grow easily and use in a variety of applications.

Many vegetarians swear by veggie burgers, most of which are made by soy, because they believe the fake meat is healthier than animal meat. But actually, most brands of non-organic soy burgers use "textured vegetable protein" and "soy protein isolate", two examples of highly-processed soy product that are used in soy products. And in order to remove the fat from the soy, manufacturers essentially give soybeans a hexane "bath" in order to separate the protein from the oil.

According to CI's senior researcher Charlotte Vallaeys, hexane is very commonly used on non-organic soy products, even ones that appear to be "natural".
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Attention

Teen Girls Bribed to Get Gardasil Vaccine with Shopping Vouchers

Ethan A. Huff
NaturalNews
Fri, 30 Apr 2010 00:00 UTC
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© Dailycentered.com
The British National Health Service (NHS) has begun bribing teenage girls between the ages of 16 and 18 to get Gardasil vaccines.

Officials are giving shopping vouchers worth the equivalent of roughly $70 to girls who agree to get jabbed with the vaccine, which has been implicated in numerous cases of severe harm and death.

Officials from NHS Birmingham East and North have initiated the pilot program which is costing taxpayers the equivalent of about $35,000. No parental consent is required in order for young girls to participate in the program.

Many governments around the world have been pushing Gardasil through national campaigns designed to scare and entice women into getting the vaccine. The U.K. is no exception, as it continues to push for all girls between 12 and 18 years old to receive the shots, despite outcry from concerned citizens over the dangers of the vaccine.
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Bad Guys

WHO Issues Warning About Corruption of Pharmaceutical Industry

David Gutierrez
NaturalNews
Fri, 30 Apr 2010 00:00 UTC
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© World Health Organization
The World Health Organization (WHO) recently issued a fact sheet warning about the corruption and unethical practices that are endemic to every step of the pharmaceuticals business.

"Corruption in the pharmaceutical sector occurs throughout all stages of the medicine chain, from research and development to dispensing and promotion," the fact sheet reads.

The medicine chain refers to each step involved in getting drugs into the hands of patients, including drug creation, regulation, management and consumption. According to WHO data, unethical practices such as bribery, falsification of evidence, and mismanagement of conflicts of interest are "common throughout the medicine chain."

The fact sheet also highlights other forms of corruption specific to particular steps in the chain. For example, clinical trials may be conducted without proper regulatory approval, royalties may be collected through manipulation or disregard of the patent system, and products may be registered with incorrect or insufficient information.
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Info

Bent on Learning: Why Increased Accessibility to Yoga Is a Vital Endeavor

Eddie Stern
One News Page
Sat, 24 Apr 2010 19:35 UTC
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As a yoga teacher since 1989, I am at the point where I am almost embarrassed to say that it is what I do because it can sound like such a cliche. Everyone does yoga; sometimes it feels like everyone sells yoga. The yoga scene, which has always been pretty wacky (think the Omnipotent Oom's yoga harem of the early 1900's), seems to be getting wackier by the day (suede yoga mat bags, anyone?).

Yoga in India was originally - and by originally I mean more or less 3,000 years ago -- practiced by those living on society's fringes: those intrepid seekers of reality that left the cities and their Vedic lifestyles to search out truth, freedom and liberation. Vedas are the revealed sacred texts of the Hindus, and to be Vedic is to belong to the Hindu culture that produced and abided by the Vedas.
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Attention

New and improved flu scam for 2010: They're going to merge H1N1 vaccine with regular flu jab

HigherCalling88
YouTube
Sun, 25 Apr 2010 19:44 UTC
In a desperate attempt to force people to take the H1N1 shot, they're now going to combine the regular flu shot with the H1N1 shot. After having to discard over 72 million doses of H1N1, they've come up with this new scheme to push this vaccine. This interview was conducted on Sunday April 25, 2010.

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Bell

Not Aging Fast Enough? Drink a Soda!

Tom Laskawy
Grist
Mon, 26 Apr 2010 19:11 UTC
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American as apple pie. But how bad for us is soda?

Hoo boy. The American Beverage Association isn't going to like this news one bit. Food companies now add significant amounts of phosphates to soda and other processed foods. And now researchers have found evidence that phosphates may accelerate aging (via Science Daily):
High phosphate levels may also increase the prevalence and severity of age-related complications, such as chronic kidney disease and cardiovascular calcification, and can also induce severe muscle and skin atrophy.

"Humans need a healthy diet and keeping the balance of phosphate in the diet may be important for a healthy life and longevity," said M. Shawkat Razzaque, M.D., Ph.D., from the Department of Medicine, Infection and Immunity at the Harvard School of Dental Medicine. "Avoid phosphate toxicity and enjoy a healthy life."

"Soda is the caffeine delivery vehicle of choice for millions of people worldwide, but comes with phosphorous as a passenger" said Gerald Weissmann, M.D., Editor-in-Chief of the FASEB Journal. "This research suggests that our phosphorous balance influences the aging process, so don't tip it."
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