This is one of the most dangerous, covert, and global operations to which we have ever been exposed; and this is very difficult for people to understand: the serious implications of products (cell phones and Smart Meters) and invisible environmental toxins that damage our ability to think clearly. This is a major contributing factor to our diminished cognitive functions. However, it is not the only source of harm.

When we begin to connect the dots to the thousands of unsafe and often highly toxic chemicals, heavy metals, and hormone disruptors to which we are exposed daily, we then can collectively see that this is not just a one-issue health crisis we face. Rather, with corporations allowed free reign to poison us with impunity [the new Monsanto protection bill is the latest crime against us], we do not have any way to have any redress of decades of grievances. The ramifications of this are enormous.

Did you know that Aspartame was banned by the FDA twice? How is this product legal now?

The bittersweet argument over whether Aspartame is safe or not has been going on for a long time. On one side we have medical evidence that suggests we should avoid using it and on the other side we lean on the FDA's approval that suggests it is safe. Since generally that seems to be the factor that many continue to hold trust based upon, I thought we could look into the Aspartame story to find out how it came to be accepted as safe by the FDA. You would think that something so widely used and so well accepted would have quite the pristine story leading to its acceptance. I imagine one will discover otherwise after reading this post.

It all starts in the mid 1960′s with a company called G.D. Searle. One of their chemists accidentally creates aspartame while trying to create a cure for stomach ulcers. Searle decides to put aspartame through a testing process which eventually leads to its approval by the FDA. Not long after, serious health effects begin to arise and G.D. Searle comes under fire for their testing practices. It is revealed that the testing process of Aspartame was among the worst the investigators had ever seen and that in fact the product was unsafe for use. Aspartame triggers the first criminal investigation of a manufacturer put into place by the FDA in 1977. By 1980 the FDA bans aspartame from use after having 3 independent scientists study the sweetener. It was determined that one main health effects was that it had a high chance of inducing brain tumors. At this point it was clear that aspartame was not fit to be used in foods and banned is where it stayed, but not for long.

Consuming highly processed carbohydrates can cause excess hunger and stimulate brain regions involved in reward and cravings, according to a Boston Children's Hospital research team led by David Ludwig, MD, PhD director, New Balance Foundation Obesity Prevention Center. These findings suggest that limiting these "high-glycemic index" foods could help obese individuals avoid overeating.

The study, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition on June 26, 2013, investigates how food intake is regulated by dopamine-containing pleasure centers of the brain.

"Beyond reward and craving, this part of the brain is also linked to substance abuse and dependence, which raises the question as to whether certain foods might be addictive," says Ludwig.

To examine the link, researchers measured blood glucose levels and hunger, while also using functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to observe brain activity during the crucial four-hour period after a meal, which influences eating behavior at the next meal. Evaluating patients in this time frame is one novel aspect of this study, whereas previous studies have evaluated patients with an MRI soon after eating.

Twelve overweight or obese men consumed test meals designed as milkshakes with the same calories, taste and sweetness. The two milkshakes were essentially the same; the only difference was that one contained rapidly digesting (high-glycemic index) carbohydrates and the other slowly digesting (low-glycemic index) carbohydrates.

After participants consumed the high-glycemic index milkshake, they experienced an initial surge in blood sugar levels, followed by sharp crash four hours later.

This decrease in blood glucose was associated with excessive hunger and intense activation of the nucleus accumbens, a critical brain region involved in addictive behaviors.

Prior studies of food addiction have compared patient reactions to drastically different types of foods, such as high-calorie cheesecake versus boiled vegetables.

Another novel aspect of this study is how a specific dietary factor that is distinct from calories or sweetness, could alter brain function and promote overeating.

"These findings suggest that limiting high-glycemic index carbohydrates like white bread and potatoes could help obese individuals reduce cravings and control the urge to overeat," says Ludwig.

Though the concept of food addiction remains provocative, the findings suggest that more interventional and observational studies be done. Additional research will hopefully inform clinicians about the subjective experience of food addiction, and how we can potentially treat these patients and regulate their weight.

Researchers from UH Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital report reasons behind the increase are unclear.

The largest investigation to date has found a dramatic increase in the number of hospitalizations for children with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) during the past decade in the United States.

The new study, published online and scheduled for the August 2013 print issue of the Journal of Investigative Medicine, found a 65 percent increase in IBD hospital discharges from 2000 to 2009. The number increased from 11,928 discharges in 2000 to 19,568 discharges in 2009.

IBD refers to a group of inflammatory conditions of the colon and small intestine. The major types of IBD are Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC). When looking at these two types of IBD individually, the authors found a 59 percent increase in CD discharges and a 71 percent increase UC discharges.

The study looked at more than 11 million hospitalization records of patients 20 years old and younger using a federal children's inpatient database. For the decade, they identified more than 61,000 pediatric discharges with an IBD diagnosis.

UC Berkeley researchers have found that a lack of sleep, which is common in anxiety disorders, may play a key role in ramping up the brain regions that contribute to excessive worrying.

Neuroscientists have found that sleep deprivation amplifies anticipatory anxiety by firing up the brain's amygdala and insular cortex, regions associated with emotional processing. The resulting pattern mimics the abnormal neural activity seen in anxiety disorders. Furthermore, their research suggests that innate worriers - those who are naturally more anxious and therefore more likely to develop a full-blown anxiety disorder - are acutely vulnerable to the impact of insufficient sleep.

"These findings help us realize that those people who are anxious by nature are the same people who will suffer the greatest harm from sleep deprivation," said Matthew Walker, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at UC Berkeley and senior author of the paper, to be published tomorrow (Wednesday, June 26) in the Journal of Neuroscience.

State health officials continue to quietly investigate what may have caused one to two dozen students to exhibit unexplained vocal tics or repetitive hiccups at Essex Agricultural and Technical School in Danvers and, to a lesser extent, North Shore Technical High in Middleton, this past school year.

The state is reaching out to more than 2,600 doctors in the region while investigating environmental factors that may have caused the symptoms, including air testing and visual observations inside school buildings. So far, according to a May 10 status report from the state Department of Public Health, air tests did not turn up anything that would contribute to "significant neurological effects."

Danvers Health Director Peter Mirandi, in an update to the Board of Health on May 30, said the state is casting a wide net to gather information from doctors and their patients.

"They will be looking for correlations between the symptoms and the students," Mirandi said. "The effort from the Department of Public Health is very thoughtful, deliberate, and I wouldn't mind recognizing them for stepping up when we needed assistance."

A spokesman for the state Department of Public Health had no update on the investigation.

The outbreak of avian-origin influenza A (H7N9) virus in eastern China^1,2 has reminded the world of the imminent threat of unexpected pathogens, including an "old" virus, influenza. Recent conversation has centered on H5N1, H9N2, H7N3, and H7N7, but never before had we considered H7N9 to be the cause of outbreaks of human infection or the next possible pandemic. Maybe we have to take a closer look at the possibility of reassortment among any of the 16 hemagglutinins and 9 neuraminidases subtypes, and even within the newly identified bat-derived, influenza-like virus H17N10.^3,4

A new coronavirus, called human coronavirus Erasmus Medical Center (hCoV-EMC) (with a recent proposed new name as Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus, or MERS-CoV in abbreviation), has caused alarm in the Middle East, as human infection was first reported in March 2012.⁵ In one year, as of May 12, 2013, there have been 34 cases, with 18 fatalities in total (www.who.org). More importantly, human-to-human transmission has been reported, with second-generation infections in France and the UK in those individuals who have had close contact with patients with a history of travel to the Middle East.

Less publicized but equally significant, the recently emerged severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome virus (SFTSV) expanded its geographic spectrum in 2012 - 2013, from China to the USA, and now to Japan.

SFTSV-induced disease was first suspected in China in 2009, and the virus was isolated and confirmed in 2011.⁶ SFTSV is a new member of the genus Phlebovirus, with over 70 known members in the genus, which is in the family Bunyaviridae. Although the phlebovirus has been found in Africa and Europe for many years, SFTSV is the first-ever virus of this type isolated in China.^6,7,8,9,10 The virus is known as the Heartland virus after the name of the place (Heartland, Missouri) where the virus was first isolated in the USA. The Heartland virus is phylogenetically distinct from SFTSV isolated in China, although similar clinical manifestations have been observed.⁹

Medical personnel in the town of Purranque, Chile have a medical mystery on their hands, one that is getting a lot of attention outside their region.

20-year-old Yaritza Oliva has been crying tears of blood starting a month ago. Much of Oliva's crying is not voluntary and occurs several times a day, which she describes as a very painful experience.

Oliva's parents do not have the resources to have the condition further diagnosed and are currently treating the bleeding with eye drops. The family is seeking financial help to take Oliva to a larger city for medical attention.

Refined carbohydrates such as corn syrup could trigger food cravings not unlike the cravings that drug addicts experience, new research suggests.

The findings, which are published today (June 26) in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, suggest that the quick spike and subsequent crash in blood sugar that comes after eating highly processed carbs activates reward and addiction centers in the brain.

The study was small and looked only at overweight and obese men, but if the findings can be replicated in a larger population, they would imply that avoiding refined carbohydrates is a good weight-loss strategy because people would avoid not only the calories, but the strong cravings they induce.

"Refined carbohydrates seem to be able to provoke food cravings many hours after consumption, at least in susceptible people," said study co-author David Ludwig, the director of the New Balance Foundation Obesity Prevention Center in Boston. "Limiting these foods could help overweight people avoid overeating."

Christopher Gardner, a nutrition scientist at Stanford University Medical Center who was not involved in the study, said that this study and others looking at the question of whether refined carbs can truly be addictive may have implications for how these foods should be regulated.

"If it can be demonstrated that addictive foods are bypassing an individual's ability to regulate their intake, then the possibility of designing, passing and enforcing legislation to help support Americans in making healthier food choices becomes more of a reality," Gardner wrote in an email to LiveScience.

Gardasil and Cervarix Don't Work, Are Dangerous, and Weren't Tested

Dr. Diane Harper was the lead researcher in the development of the human papilloma virus vaccines, Gardasil and Cervarix. She is the latest to come forward and question the safety and effectiveness of these vaccines. She made the surprising announcement at the 4th International Public Conference on Vaccination, which took place in Reston, Virginia on Oct. 2nd through 4th, 2009. Her speech was supposed to promote the Gardasil and Cervarix vaccines, but she instead turned on her corporate bosses in a very public way. When questioned about the presentation, audience members remarked that they came away feeling that the vaccines should not be used.

"I came away from the talk with the perception that the risk of adverse side effects is so much greater than the risk of cervical cancer, I couldn't help but question why we need the vaccine at all." - Joan Robinson