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Pills

Nearly 10 percent of children are hospitalized for mental health

Shannon Firth
US News
Mon, 17 Mar 2014 00:00 UTC
childhood depression
Hospitals have charged almost as much to treat children’s depression as they have to treat children’s asthma, a new study says.
Nearly 10 percent of children are hospitalized for a mental health diagnosis, but minority children are frequently overlooked.

More than 4 million American children and adolescents have a mental illness, and a study from the University of California, San Francisco shows mental health hospitalizations among this demographic increased by 24 percent between 2007 and 2010.

The latest findings suggest nearly 1 in 10 children are hospitalized because of a mental health problem.

"The most important finding is the fact that mental health hospitalizations are so common for kids," Dr. Naomi Bardach, a professor of pediatrics at the UCSF School of Medicine and the study's lead author, tells U.S. News & World Report.

The study examined the specific mental health reasons for children's hospital stays, and showed that depression, bipolar disorder and psychosis are among the most common conditions associated with mental health hospitalizations. According to the report, hospitals charge nearly as much for treating children who are hospitalized for depression - about $1.33 billion per year - as they do for the inpatient care of children with asthma - about $1.5 billion.

Comment: Considering the amount of over-medication of children, the effects of fast-food diets, mercury and fluoride contamination and other pollutants as well as the ongoing poverty affecting so many children, it's not surprising that children are being hospitalized at record rates.

Little Pharma: The Medication of U.S. Children
More Children on Drugs Than Ever: Chronic Prescriptions Increase Dramatically
Children trapped in 'toxic climate' of dieting, pornography and school stress
One-Fifth of US Children are Living in Poverty
Poverty Goes Straight to the Brain

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Ice Cream Bar

Big Food's Sugar Wars


Alliance for Natural Health
Tue, 18 Mar 2014 19:56 UTC
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Evil sugar
For years, the Corn Refiner's Association (CRA), which represents companies that process and sell high-fructose corn syrup, or HFCS, and the Sugar Association have been in a cutthroat competition.

In 2010, CRA asked the FDA permission to rebrand HFCS as "corn sugar" in an attempt to rehabilitate HFCS's negative image - that is, to trick consumers into thinking HFCS is nutritionally equivalent to processed sugar or even natural sugars. In 2011, the Sugar Association sued CRA for its "misleading campaign." In 2012, CRA sued right back for "smearing" HFCS.

It's difficult to decide whose "spin" is more absurd. For example, a Sugar Association webpage entitled "A Balanced Diet" includes a picture of an "ideal" grocery bag filled with fruits, vegetables - and Fig Newtons. This page also that argues that sugar is an "essential" part of a healthful diet:The simple, irrefutable fact is this: Sugar is a healthy part of a diet. Carbohydrates, including sugar, are the preferred sources of the body's fuel for brain power, muscle energy and every natural process that goes on in every functioning cell. Sugar is more than a "fun" food ingredient, it's an essential one as well. Because it's all-natural, you can consume it with confidence.


Comment: Nothing could be farther from the truth. There is no such thing as a necessary carbohydrate. That is, the actual amount of carbohydrates required by humans for health is zero. For most of us, from an evolutionary perspective, a high-sugar diet is a metabolic challenge that some find difficult as early as birth and many fail to meet as early as adolescence. Humans are NOT meant to consume 'healthy whole grains.' Our intolerance can show up as type 1 diabetes in kids, type 2 diabetes in kids and adults, acid reflux, bowel urgency, autoimmune diseases, dementia, seizures, hypertension, water retention, paranoia, anxiety, eating disorders, or just plain feeling rotten.

Ketones derived from fat, are the ideal fuel for our brain and body, unlike glucose - which is damaging, less stable, more excitatory and in fact shortens our life span. For more information, see:

Five dangers to indulging in simple carbs
The Ketogenic Diet - An Overview
Tips & Tricks for Starting (or Restarting) Low- Carb Pt I

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Magnify

Are soft drinks making you fat? Research shows calories are not the only problem

Martha Rosenberg
opednews.com
Fri, 14 Mar 2014 18:44 UTC
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No one would defend soft drinks as healthful or good for you. But recent research about high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) and artificial sweeteners suggest soft drinks may be even worse for us than we thought. Especially because soft drinks likely contain either HFCS or sugar substitutes. The truth is soft drinks may do a lot more good for the big beverage companies that make them than the people who drink them.

High Fructose Corn Syrup and GMO Corn

Can anyone remember life before high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) was in almost every "sweet" food? The consumption of high fructose corn syrup has grown 1,000 percent since its introduction in soft drinks in 1984. Food producers much prefer HFCS to beet or cane sugar because it can be pumped into trucks and tanks unlike its solid, bulky counterparts. They also like HFCS because it is immune to sugar's wild price swings from unstable political regions and trade barriers and can be produced in the US. HFCS also provides benefits in processed foods like moisture retention and crystallization resistance (which allows "moist" baked goods), flavor enhancement, and, in ice cream protection against "freezing point depression."

What's to not like?

Comment: The Facts, Statistics and Dangers of Soda Pop

The Real Dangers of Soda to You and Your Children
Soda Ingredients Linked to Cirrhosis and Cancer
Soft Drink Consumption May Increase Risk of Pancreatic Cancer
Study shows that soft drinks accelerate behavioral problems in children
Coca-Cola's Orange Drinks Found to Contain 300 Times More Pesticides than Legal Limit in Water

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Arrow Up

Bolivia: A Country With No McDonald's

Steve Holt
TakePart.com
Wed, 05 Jun 2013 18:17 UTC
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© Shannon DeCelleA market in La Paz showcases some of the many varieties of food grown in Bolivia.
What America can learn from one of the most sustainable food nations on Earth.

If you traverse the South American nation of Bolivia, from the heights of the Andes Mountains to the Amazon Jungle to the urban streets of Santa Cruz, you'll never once find a Big Mac or a McNugget. They don't exist there - and haven't for about a decade. McDonald's couldn't survive in the mountainous country, so in 2002 the global fast-food chain closed its last store.

This is ancient news in Bolivia, of course, but a 2011 documentary about the oddity sent the story around the world and caused many to ask, "What's Bolivia doing so right that McDonald's couldn't make it there?"
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Yoda

France stands up to Monsanto: Bans seed giant's GMO corn

John Deike
EcoWatch.com
Mon, 17 Mar 2014 17:03 UTC
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On Saturday, France's agriculture ministry temporarily banned the sale, use and cultivation of Monsanto's MON 810 genetically engineered (GE) corn - the only variety that had been authorized in the European Union (EU).

The French government, which argues GE crops present environmental risks, kept pushing to institute the new ban even after the country's highest court struck down similar measures in the past, according to Reuters.
"France's reinstatement of its previous ban of Monsanto's controversial genetically engineered crop ... is another encouraging sign that the biotech industry's iron grip on foreign government's is slipping and that resistance to these flawed products is continuing to take hold," - Dave Murphy, founder and executive director of Food Democracy Now!.
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Heart

Scientists fail to find a link between saturated fat and heart disease

George Dvorsky
io9
Tue, 18 Mar 2014 08:00 UTC
Bugger
© sripfoto/Shutterstock
For years we've been told to reduce our consumption of saturated fats as a sure-fire way to prevent heart disease. But a recent analysis of 45 studies and 27 trials involving over 600,000 participants is forcing a rethink of this long held - and apparently erroneous - assumption.

The primary takeaway of this study is not necessarily that saturated fats don't contribute to heart disease (a link that's now most certainly been cast into doubt) - but that food and the way it affects our health is an incredibly complicated and multifaceted process.

One of the study's authors, Dariush Mozaffarian of the department of epidemiology at Harvard University in Boston, put it best by saying: "Guidelines that focus on the nutrients, single nutrients, as targets for preventing chronic diseases don't make a lot of sense. I think we need to move to food-based guidelines, to really talk about food, not nutrients."

Indeed, a prime example of this problem is the unwarranted focus on cholesterol and its apparent association with cardiovascular disease - the so-called LDL-heart disease hypothesis. Recently, however, physicians are coming to realize that cholesterol levels do not strongly predict our chances of developing heart disease, and there are now over a dozen studies that prove it. The notion that lowering saturated fats - which are typically consumed via butter, whole milk, red meat, poultry, coconut oil, and nuts - will lower bad cholesterol is predicated on some rather shaky ideas.

And now, as the new meta-study shows, there's insufficient data to support current guidelines restricting the consumption of saturated fats in order to prevent heart disease.
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Arrow Down

Victims of pharmacy mistakes have little recourse

Julie Wiest
Digital Journal
Wed, 26 Feb 2014 05:16 UTC
Pills
© Flillmore Photography

As patients, we entrust our health to a variety of medical professionals. We often think of the role doctors play in our well-being, but pharmacists - the gatekeepers of the medicine that doctors prescribe - also play a crucial part.

Like other medical errors, pharmacy mistakes can have serious consequences. According to a 2009 ABC News report, medical mistakes are the eighth-most-common cause of death in the U.S., and pharmacies account for a large portion of those errors.

We occasionally hear stories about the aftermath of these errors, like the Houston woman who last fall sued the pharmacy she says filled her daughter's medication at 10 times the prescribed dose, causing her death. But most people have no idea how frequently these errors occur. I know I didn't until it happened to me. In December, my four-year-old Labrador retriever was prescribed a medication to help with a condition related to her cancer. The pharmacist at a West Chester, Pa., Rite Aid mistakenly filled the medication at three times the prescribed dose, putting my dog's life in danger. Fortunately, she recovered from the overdose after two nights at the emergency veterinarian.

It turns out that dispensing the wrong dose of a prescribed medication is one of the most common pharmacy errors, along with dispensing the wrong drug and providing incorrect instructions. And while we know these errors occur all too frequently - a pharmacy auditor I consulted called them "fairly common" - we don't know exactly how frequently because many cases are never reported and even fewer are publicized. With Americans these days taking more prescription medications than ever before, we should expect these errors to increase.
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Attention

Extremely contagious pig virus has already killed more than 4 million hogs in the U.S.

Michael Snyder
Activist Post
Mon, 17 Mar 2014 16:25 UTC
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If you eat pork, get ready to pay a lot more for it. A highly contagious pig virus known as "Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus" has now spread to 27 different U.S. states, and it has killed more than 4 million hogs since last May. Smithfield Foods, the largest pork producer in the entire world, estimates that approximately 10 percent of all adult female hogs in America have contracted the disease already, and there is a very good chance that any offspring that they have will die. That is because the mortality rate for this disease for piglets is between 80 and 100 percent.

Fortunately, we are being told that this disease does not affect humans. However, considering the fact that California is in the midst of one of the worst droughts in recorded history, and considering the fact that the U.S. cattle herd has shrunk for seven years in a row, this pig virus is coming at a very, very bad time.

And the frightening thing is that the spread of this disease appears to be accelerating.
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Syringe

How vaccine pushers conceal the truth

Sandy Lunoe
Natural Blaze
Sun, 16 Mar 2014 21:34 UTC
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We know that statistics may be twisted into the realm of absurdity, but most of us seem to accept them when considering the safety of medicines.

Here's a typical example: We ask a doctor who recommends a vaccine about the risk of contracting Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS), a serious autoimmune condition which may evolve into paralysis. The doctor may assure us that the risk is "probably only one additional case in each million persons vaccinated."

Why should we accept this statistic without question?

Where do these safety statistics come from? They come from epidemiologists and statisticians whose interest is in the promotion of vaccines and who manipulate the statistics so that vaccines appear to be safer than they are in reality.
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Evil Rays

Green Bank, West Virginia: Dozens of Americans who claim to be allergic to electromagnetic signals settle in small town where WiFi is banned!


Daily Mail
Sun, 09 Mar 2014 15:11 UTC
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Behind the times: Dozens of Americans have relocated to the small town of Green Bank, West Virginia in hopes of escaping electromagnetic signals.
  • Green Bank, West Virginia is situated in the middle of the National Radio Quiet Zone
  • All electromagnetic signals are banned within the zone including WiFi and cellphones
  • The zone was set up to protect the world's largest radio telescopes from electronic interference
  • Americans from across the country have resettled in Green Bank to get away from the signals, which they find physically damaging
  • More than 30 people have relocated to Green Bank as of 2013
A small remote town where Wi-Fi is banned has become an unlikely haven for people claiming modern technology has been making them ill.

The so-called 'Wi-Fi refugees' are flocking to the tiny settlement to escape painful symptoms including burning skin, chest pains and acute headaches.

The sufferers argue the affliction - a condition known as Electromagnetic Sensitivity - has been eased by the move and report feeling much better.

Comment: What's Wi-Fi doing to us? Experiment finds that shrubs die when placed next to wireless routers

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