Health & WellnessS


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Hard to Stomach: A western diet promotes unhealthy gut bacteria in children


The Economist
Thu, 05 Aug 2010 20:15 UTC
Family meals often descend into ritual battles over healthy greens: how many children must consume, and how many treats they will earn as a result. The stakes may be higher than parents realize. According to a study published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a sugary, fat-laden Western diet wreaks profound changes on children's gut bacteria, and could even promote the risk of asthma, allergies and other inflammatory diseases.

Rates of inflammatory disease have been rising for decades among adults and children alike. Puzzlingly, this increase has occurred largely in developed countries, bypassing poorer places. (Rural poverty brings many hardships; inflammatory bowel disease is not among them.) This has left scientists struggling to pinpoint exactly what about the rich world is making people sick. New data from Paolo Lionetti, of the University of Florence in Italy, supports the view that diet may be the culprit.
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Info

Canola Oil is a Classic Example of Food Fraud

Paul Fassa
Natural News
Thu, 19 Aug 2010 18:17 UTC
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© marriedtothesea.com
Remember margarine? That was touted as healthier than butter several years ago. Though many have since caught on to that lie, it still persists somewhat. Margarine is as healthy as melted plastic. But it sure is cheap to produce! That was then, this is now. Could Canola oil's health claims compare with margarine's fraud?

There is evidence to support health food fraud with canola oil. Not buying it by the bottle is easy enough, but it appears in many prepared or processed foods, even those in health food stores. Because of Canola's marketing itself as a healthy option, it is recommended by many health food experts. Meanwhile, the health food industry sells and uses it as a healthy alternative despite growing evidence of toxic dangers.
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Pills

Research Shows: Drug Addicts Get Hooked via Prescriptions, Keep Using 'To Feel Like a Better Person'


Physorg.com
Fri, 20 Aug 2010 17:46 UTC
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© unknown
If you want to know how people become addicted and why they keep using drugs, ask the people who are addicted.

Thirty-one of 75 patients hospitalized for opioid detoxification told University at Buffalo physicians they first got hooked on drugs legitimately prescribed for pain.

Another 24 began with a friend's left-over prescription pills or pilfered from a parent's
medicine cabinet. The remaining 20 patients said they got hooked on street drugs.

However, 92 percent of the patients in the study said they eventually bought drugs off the street, primarily heroin, because it is less expensive and more effective than prescriptions.

They continued using drugs because they "helped to take away my emotional pain and stress," "to feel normal," "to feel like a better person."
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Bulb

Meditation is Proven to be the Serene Way to Get Smarter


Daily Mail
Tue, 17 Aug 2010 17:32 UTC
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Integrative body-mind training boosts neuron connectivity in the part of the brain which regulates emotions and behavior
It has long being credited as the way to a serene mind. But scientists have now discovered that meditation physically enhances the brain.

Even a brief course of meditation strengthens connections between the regions of the brain that regulate our emotional responses, they found.

This could make it easier for us to keep calm, they said.

Chinese and U.S. researchers at the University of Oregon focused on effects of a meditation technique known as integrative body mind training, or IBMT.

Based on ancient Chinese medicine, IBMT combines posture, mental imagery and body relaxation and breathing techniques.
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People

New Study Shows That Childless Women Succeed More Than Mothers in the Worplace

Kelly Hagan
ABC News
Mon, 23 Aug 2010 14:29 UTC
Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice -- what do these women have in common?

Despite their widely varying political and personal experiences, all three of these powerful women do not have children, and some experts think this fact may have contributed directly to their successes.

A new study from the University of Chicago claims that childless women become more successful in the workplace than women with children.
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Ambulance

US: Mental Health Problems Rampant In Kids Displaced by Katrina


LiveScience
Mon, 23 Aug 2010 14:08 UTC
Five years after Hurricane Katrina wreaked havoc on the Gulf Coast, the impact of the disaster continues to take a psychological toll on children, according to a new study.

The results show that more than 37 percent of children displaced by the disaster, which unfolded five years ago this week, have been diagnosed with depression, anxiety or behavioral and conduct disorders. These children were also five times more likely to experience emotional disturbances than kids not affected by the hurricane.

However, fewer than half of parents seeking mental health counseling for their children were able to access professional services.
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Coffee

Coffee Addiction: How to Naturally Kick the Habit

Carolyn Dean, M.D., N.D.
Huffington Post
Sun, 22 Aug 2010 23:55 UTC
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© unknown
Coffee is probably the most consumed beverage on the planet and there are many reasons why. It's both a stimulant and a laxative. So it wakes you up and makes you go... in more ways than one. For marketing purposes, coffee is often cited as a high antioxidant beverage, which may account for a recent flood of media reports that coffee is a health drink!

But, let's face it, if you analyze any plant for its contents you are bound to find antioxidants. That's what plants have in abundance. It's their job to make antioxidants. Non-edible plants like willow bark, spruce needles, pine bark and birch wood are also high in antioxidants. That doesn't mean we have to eat them!

Whether coffee is good or bad is relative and based on the individual. Let me to help you decide whether you are addicted and what to do about it.
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Health

Born to be Big: Early exposure to common chemicals may be programming kids to be fat

Sharon Begley
Newsweek
Fri, 11 Sep 2009 21:18 UTC
It's easy enough to find culprits in the nation's epidemic of obesity, starting with tubs of buttered popcorn at the multiplex and McDonald's 1,220-calorie deluxe breakfasts, and moving on to the couch potatofication of America. Potent as they are, however, these causes cannot explain the ballooning of one particular segment of the population, a segment that doesn't go to movies, can't chew, and was never that much into exercise: babies. In 2006 scientists at the Harvard School of Public Health reported that the prevalence of obesity in infants under 6 months had risen 73 percent since 1980. "This epidemic of obese 6-month-olds," as endocrinologist Robert Lustig of the University of California, San Francisco, calls it, poses a problem for conventional explanations of the fattening of America. "Since they're eating only formula or breast milk, and never exactly got a lot of exercise, the obvious explanations for obesity don't work for babies," he points out. "You have to look beyond the obvious."
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People

The Real Cause of Obesity: It's not gluttony. It's genetics. Why our moralizing misses the point


Newsweek
Thu, 10 Sep 2009 21:11 UTC
Despite receiving a MacArthur genius award for her work in Alabama "forging an inspiring model of compassionate and effective medical care in one of the most underserved regions of the United States," Regina Benjamin's qualifications to be surgeon general have been questioned. Why? She is overweight. "It tends to undermine her credibility," Dr. Marcia Angell, former editor of The New England Journal of Medicine, said in an interview with ABC News. "I do think at a time when a lot of public-health concern is about the national epidemic of obesity, having a surgeon general who is noticeably overweight raises questions in people's minds."

It is not enough, it seems, that the obese must suffer the medical consequences of their weight, consequences that include diabetes, heart disease, and cancer, and that cause nearly 300,000 deaths in the United States each year. They must also suffer the opprobrium heaped on them by people like Angell or Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI), who advised the obese to "Look in the mirror because you are the one to blame." In our society, perhaps no group is more stigmatized than the obese.
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Arrow Up

Eating Green Vegetables 'Reduces Risk of Diabetes'

Jane Kirby
The Independent
Fri, 20 Aug 2010 21:01 UTC
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© recipes.howstuffworks.comLeafy Greens
Eating green leafy vegetables could help cut the risk of Type 2 diabetes, research suggests.

Broccoli, kale, spinach, sprouts and cabbage can reduce the risk by 14 per cent when eaten daily. The vegetables are rich in antioxidants and magnesium, which has been linked to lower levels of diabetes.
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