Long-term cannabis users tend to produce less dopamine, a chemical in the brain linked to motivation, a study has found.

Researchers found that dopamine levels in a part of the brain called the striatum were lower in people who smoke more cannabis and those who began taking the drug at a younger age.

They suggest this finding could explain why some cannabis users appear to lack motivation to work or pursue their normal interests.

The study, by scientists at Imperial College London, UCL and King's College London, was funded by the Medical Research Council and published in the journal Biological Psychiatry.

The percentage of U.S. women overdosing on prescription painkillers has increased sharply in recent years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Between 1999 and 2010, the proportion of deaths from painkiller overdose increased 400 percent among women, while rising 265 percent among men.

"Prescription painkiller deaths have skyrocketed in women," Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the CDC, said at a news conference today (July 2). "Mothers, wives, sisters and daughters are dying of overdoses at rates we have never seen before," Frieden said.

While men remain more likely to die of a prescription painkiller overdose, deaths among women have increased at a higher rate, and are catching up to those of men, Frieden said.

In 2010, more than 6,600 women died from prescription painkiller overdose, which is four times the number of women who died from cocaine and heroin overdoses combined, the CDC says. Most of these deaths are accidental. The death rate was highest among women ages 45 to 54.

There were also more than 200,000 emergency department visits for opioid abuse among women in that year.

New research in The FASEB Journal suggests that fish oil DHA is used to create Maresins, which cause macrophages to 'turn off' inflammation.

Chronic inflammation is a major factor in a wide range of problems from arthritis to cardiovascular disease, and DHA (found in fish oil) is known to temper this problem. A new research report appearing in the July 2013 issue of The FASEB Journal, helps explain why DHA is important in reducing inflammation, and provides an important lead to finding new drugs that will help bring people back to optimal health. Specifically, researchers found that macrophages (a type of white blood cell) use DHA to produce "maresins," which serve as the "switch" that turns inflammation off and switches on resolution.

"We hope that the results from this study will enable investigators to test the relevance of the maresin pathway in human disease," said Charles N. Serhan, Ph.D., a researcher involved in the work from the Brigham & Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston, Mass. "Moreover, we hope to better understand resolution biology and its potential pharmacology so that we can enhance our ability to control unwanted inflammation and improve the quality of life."

The transparency campaign initiated by McDonald's last year was intended at marketing a more health conscious image of McDonald's Corp. - and at using social media more effectively, but instead of talking about their love for the brand, the hashtag became a forum for people to talk about how disgusting they believe the food is. The ingredients in their french fries went viral. Instead of the basic two ingredients-potatoes and oil, consumers found out McDonald's french fries contain 17 ingredients.

The campaign isn't brand new. Launched by McDonalds last June using a YouTube video to answer a consumer's question about why their food looks so drastically different in commercials than in the restaurant, the "Our Food, Your Questions" premise opened McDonalds' kitchen doors, lending the brand to a supposed more honest and transparent feel.

By prompting consumers to ask their questions on Facebook or Twitter, McDonalds hoped to build trust and credibility in a marketplace where bad press has followed them in the form of viral videos and unappetizing images.

McDonald's eventually began disclosing the secret behind how the fast food chain's fries are made. They produced a video answering a series of questions about McDonald's fries: where the potatoes come from, how they are processed, what kind of oil they're fried in, and why there is so much salt on them.

Cancer is now so common it affects about one of two of us and most will face it at some point in their lives, either personally or through a friend or relative. Compelling research indicates that the answer to our burgeoning cancer epidemic could be far closer than previously imagined, in the form of a ketogenic diet.

Personally, I believe this is an absolutely crucial facet of cancer prevention and treatment, for whatever type of cancer you're trying to address, and hopefully, some day it will be adopted as a first line of treatment by mainstream medicine.

A ketogenic diet calls for eliminating all but non-starchy vegetable carbohydrates, and replacing them with high amounts of healthy fats and low to moderate amounts of high-quality protein.

The premise is that since cancer cells need glucose to thrive, and carbohydrates turn into glucose in your body, then lowering the glucose level in your blood through carb and protein restriction literally starves the cancer cells to death. Additionally, low protein intake tends to minimize the mTOR pathway that accelerates cell proliferation and lowers the amount of one particular amino acid, glutamine, which is also known to drive certain cancers.

This type of diet is what I recommend for everyone, whether you have cancer or not, because it will help you convert from carb burning mode to fat burning, which will help you optimize your weight and prevent virtually all chronic degenerative disease.

A new animal study published in the journal PLoS sheds light on a possible mechanism behind the weight- and diabetes-promoting properties of wheat observed in humans, and perhaps offers some vindication for Dr. William Davis' New York Times best-selling but heavily criticized book Wheat Belly, wherein the argument is made that wheat is a major contributing factor to the epidemic of obesity and diabetes presently afflicting wealthier, gluten-grain consuming nations.

In the new study, researchers from The Bartholin Institute, Copenhagen, Denmark, explored the role that gliadin, a difficult to digest class of proteins within wheat, plays in promoting weight gain and insulin secretion in both animal and cell models, finding that gliadin-treated mice gained 20% more weight (by day 100) than gliadin-free controls, and that gliadin fragments induce insulin secretion in pancreatic beta cells, the cells responsible for producing insulin, and which in type 1 diabetes are destroyed or rendered dysfunctional.

Gliadin does not break down easily in the body because they are extremely hydrophobic ("water fearing"), and contain disulfide bonds (the same kind found in human hair and vulcanized rubber);[1] as a result, undigested wheat gliadin fragments can enter through the intestinal wall, gaining systemic access to the human body. This can result in inflammatory and autoimmune conditions, among many other possible negative health effects (note: we have documented over 200 adverse health effects associated with wheat exposure).

A scary virus is sweeping Saudi Arabia. Six million religious pilgrims are about to descend on the country from across the world. The result could be disastrous.

When the Black Death exploded in Arabia in the 14th century, killing an estimated third of the population, it spread across the Islamic world via infected religious pilgrims. Today, the Middle East is threatened with a new plague, one eponymously if not ominously named the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS-CoV, or MERS for short). This novel coronavirus was discovered in Jordan in March 2012, and as of June 26, there have been 77 laboratory-confirmed infections, 62 of which have been in Saudi Arabia; 34 of these Saudi patients have died.

Although the numbers -- so far -- are small, the disease is raising anxiety throughout the region. But officials in Saudi Arabia are particularly concerned.

This fall, millions of devout Muslims will descend upon Mecca, Medina, and Saudi Arabia's holy sites in one of the largest annual migrations in human history. In 2012, approximately 6 million pilgrims came through Saudi Arabia to perform the rituals associated with umrah, and this number is predicted to rise in 2013. Umrah literally means "to visit a populated place," and it's the very proximity that has health officials so worried. In Mecca alone, millions of pilgrims will fulfill the religious obligation of circling the Kaaba. And having a large group of people together in a single, fairly confined space threatens to turn the holiest site in Islam into a massive petri dish.

The disease is still mysterious. Little is understood about how it is transmitted and even less regarding its origins. But we do know that MERS is deadly, with a mortality rate of about 55 percent -- a remarkably higher lethality than that posed by its close cousin, the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) virus, which in 2003 terrified travelers across the globe but posed a fatality rate of only 9.6 percent. The MERS coronavirus is new to our species, so mild and asymptomatic infections seem to be rare, but the human immune response to infection is itself so extreme that it can prove deadly in some cases.

The UK wants to be the first nation to have a "three-parent" in vitro fertilization (IVF) process approved to create babies without genetic disorders.

The UK National Health Services (NHS) announced the 3-parent IVF with a draft of new regulations to be approved by the British Parliament.

Dame Sally Davies, chief medical officer for the NHS said : "Mitochondrial disease, including heart disease, liver disease, loss of muscle co-ordination and other serious conditions like muscular dystrophy, can have a devastating impact on the people who inherit it. Scientists have developed groundbreaking new procedures that could stop these diseases being passed on, bringing hope to many families seeking to prevent their future children inheriting them. It's only right that we look to introduce this lifesaving treatment as soon as we can."

This new genetic manipulative process will develop from DNA of 3 participants to specifically target and prevent mitochondrial diseases.

This genetic process involves transferring genetic material from the nucleus of an egg or embryo from one that is diseased to one that is healthy. This will prevent the inheritance of negative mitochondria.

A professional farmer redefines the term 'Value Meal'

In 1996, I returned from college to my family's farm and found it in complete shambles. My parents had given up on ever making a profit from farming, and had taken jobs in the city to make ends meet. Our crops of corn and cattle barely covered our production costs, and the land didn't generate enough profit for us to even buy our own food. Our family farm, just like thousands of others across the country, was undeniably broken.

Now, nearly 20 years later, we've turned our farm around. We raise grass-finished beef, and sell it directly to customers at farmers' markets. Because I sell my food directly to the public, I'm constantly asked: "Why is organic food so expensive?" This is an understandable question, especially because 'conventional' beef at the grocery stores is so much cheaper by comparison. But in order to understand why one type of beef is more 'expensive,' we should first examine why the other meat is so 'cheap.'

Julie Redfern suffered seven years of being able to hear her eyeballs move and the blood move through her veins in a rare hearing condition.

The receptionist, of Padiham, Lancashire, had to stop dining with friends because she could not hear them speak over the sound of her own chewing.

Mrs Redfern, 47, also had to cut out crunchy foods like apples and crisps because of the loud noises they made.

She struggled at work because the phone ringing on her desk would make her eyeballs shake loudly from the vibrations, but her condition is being cured with pioneer surgery.

Mrs Redfern first noticed the condition aged 40 as she sat playing the computer game, Tetris, and realised she could hear her eyes squeak as they moved from side to side.

She said: "I was playing on the game and I thought 'What's that noise?' Then I realised that it was my eyeballs.

"Every time the block moved and I followed it with my eyes I could hear them squeaking. It was a horrible sensation, I could literally hear them moving, scratching, it was very weird."