Health & WellnessS


Smoking

Best of the Web: Oral Sex May Cause More Throat Cancer Than Smoking in Men, Researchers Say

Robert Langreth
Bloomberg
Tue, 04 Oct 2011 04:03 UTC
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A virus spread by oral sex may cause more cases of throat cancer in men than smoking, a finding that spurred calls for a new large-scale test of a drug used against the infection.

Researchers examined 271 throat-tumor samples collected over 20 years ending in 2004 and found that the percentage of oral cancer linked to the human papillomavirus, or HPV, surged to 72 percent from about 16 percent, according to a report released yesterday in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. By 2020, the virus-linked throat tumors -- which mostly affected men -- will become more common than HPV-caused cervical cancer, the report found.

HPV is known for infecting genitals. The finding that it can spread to the throat and cause cancer may increase pressure on Merck & Co., the second-largest U.S. drugmaker, to conduct large-scale trials to see if its vaccine Gardasil, which wards off cervical cancer in women, also prevents HPV throat infections.

"The burden of cancer caused by HPV is going to shift from women to men in this decade," Maura Gillison, an oncologist at Ohio State University and study senior author, said in a telephone interview. "What we believe is happening is that the number of sexual partners and exposure to HPV has risen over that same time period."
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Smoking

Cigarette Vending Machines Banned in the UK

James Edgar
The Independent
Sat, 01 Oct 2011 00:00 UTC
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© mitreagencyclients.com
Children will find it more difficult to buy cigarettes as vending machines selling tobacco will be officially banned in England today.

According to the British Heart Foundation (BHF), around 200,000 young people start smoking regularly in England each year and 11 per cent of 11- to 15-year-old regular smokers in England and Wales get their cigarettes from vending machines.

The charity, which has been campaigning for the ban to cut off the easy source of tobacco, said more than half (56 per cent) of trading standards test purchases with under-age volunteers resulted in successful sales from vending machines in 2010/11.

Comment: While we certainly do not advocate smoking for minors, this is just another step toward a complete fascist nanny state.

Smoking can have benefits for some people:
Let's All Light Up!
Study finds smoking wards off Parkinson's disease
Nicotine helps Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Patients
Scientists Identify Brain Regions Where Nicotine Improves Attention, Other Cognitive Skills

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Light Sabers

Best of the Web: The Long Knives Are Out For 'Wheat Belly' - bring out the "Cult" accusation!

Tom Naughton
fathead-movie.com
Fri, 30 Sep 2011 14:33 UTC
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© amazon.com
Looks as if the grain-industry people have been trolling the internet attempting to trash Wheat Belly, the outstanding new book by Dr. William Davis. How else do you explain an Amazon review written under the title The David Koresh of Medicine. Notice that the review doesn't dispute any of the facts or science presented in Wheat Belly:
The author has no credentials, no credibility, just a small cult of terribly misinformed followers. Don't be fooled by the high volume screech against wheat and grains.
I have to admit, it didn't occur to me when I recommended Wheat Belly that Dr. Davis has no credentials. I assumed being a doctor who's seen the benefits of a wheat-free diet in thousands of his own patients counted for something. I also figured that after poring over hundreds of studies on wheat's health effects and thoroughly researching the history and genetic structure of wheat, Dr. Davis was qualified to write on the topic.

Comment: For more Real, science based information on healthy eating, check out the following documented sources about the serious negative effects of a diet based on wheat consumption:

The Critical Role of Wheat in Human Disease
The Dark Side of Wheat - New Perspectives on Celiac Disease and Wheat Intolerance
Gluten: What You Don't Know Might Kill You
Just because someone doesn't have coeliac disease, doesn't mean they don't have a problem with gluten
Why is Wheat Gluten Disorder on the Rise?
Can You Stomach Wheat? How Giving up Grain May Better Your Health
The Addictive Opioids in Wheat and Dairy Foods

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Video

We're Not Buying It: Stop Junk Food Marketing to Kids


youtube
Thu, 06 Oct 2011 16:13 UTC

Comment: To learn more about the truly deceptive marketing of junk foods to kids via large corporations read the following articles:

Study Shows Fast Food Companies Aggressively Market to Kids, Minorities
Junk Food Mountain: The Astonishing Amount of Rubbish One Child Eats Every Year
Food Industry Is Now Calling Junk Food 'Healthy' - Why Could That Be?
The Junk Food Wars

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Health

Panel Advises Against Prostate Cancer Screening

Lauran Neergaard
The Associated Press
Fri, 07 Oct 2011 00:00 UTC
doctor, prostate cancer
© unknown
No major medical group recommends routine PSA blood tests to check men for prostate cancer, and now a government panel is saying they do more harm than good and healthy men should no longer receive the tests as part of routine cancer screening.

The panel's guidelines had long advised men over 75 to forgo the tests and the new recommendation extends that do-not-screen advice to healthy men of all ages.

The recommendation by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, being made public on Friday, will not come as a surprise to cancer specialists.

Yet, most men over 50 have had at least one PSA blood test, the assumption being that finding cancer early is always a good thing.

Not so, said Dr. Virginia Moyer of the Baylor College of Medicine, who heads the task force.
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Health

A Healthy Poke: Demystifying the Science Behind Acupuncture

Alice G. Walton, Ph.D.
The Atlantic
Thu, 29 Sep 2011 14:55 UTC
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© The AtlanticAcupuncture is a "retrospective science, going on for 3,000 years. We know it works, we just don't know why."
Many of us have started to embrace the use of alternative medicine, but acupuncture, with its qi, yin, and meridians, still raises eyebrows.

While many practices in alternative medicine are slowly but surely making their way into the mainstream, acupuncture is one that still produces skeptical eyebrow raises. This phenomenon is partly due to linguistics. Scientists have worked to elucidate the mechanisms by which yoga, meditation, and various dietary interventions may work on the cells of the body, but there is something fundamentally more ancient-feeling about the language of acupuncture. Go to the NIH's website on complementary and alternative medicine (NCCAM), and even here you'll find a discussion that involves qi, yin, yang, and meridians.

Is it possible to discuss acupuncture in a way that makes sense to even the most Westernized brains? The short answer is yes - but with the caveat there there is no single unifying explanation for how it works. While acupuncture has been demonstrated to be useful in pain management and in treating the nausea and vomiting associated with chemotherapy, other uses have had more mixed results when studied scientifically.
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Cow Skull

Many 'Natural' Foods are Loaded with GMOs

S. D. Wells
Natural News
Wed, 05 Oct 2011 14:22 UTC
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© food-based-nutrition.com
Weed killer is thriving biologically inside most conventional crops as they grow in the fields of America, only to be sprayed with more heavy doses of Roundup, and then shipped to the world's supermarkets as "all natural," with absolutely no GMO disclaimer or warning. Even vegetarian products have been infiltrated by this cancer-causing "Trojan horse."

Corn and soy based products infiltrate the American "norm" for daily general consumption, and the healthcare industry loves the results. Hundreds of thousands of Americans are suffering from infections, serious gluten allergy reactions, headaches, dizzy spells, kidney stones, bowel irregularities, and worst of all, mutagenic cell production leading to cancer. Monsanto's GMO farm land has increased from just 4 million acres in 1997 to over 330 million acres now, most of which is United States soil. Brazil and India are now popular GMO breeding grounds also.
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Attention

Propaganda Alert: New York Post - The City's New Psychosis: Gluten!

Sheila McClear & Carla Spartos
New York Post
Wed, 05 Oct 2011 16:28 UTC
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© New York Times Post
Attack of the killer bread loaves! More New Yorkers than ever are running scared from wheat - but are their fears founded?

It's a Saturday afternoon at Tu-Lu's Gluten Free Bakery in the East Village, and a steady stream of customers is flowing through the small pink-and-white shop. Most are fashionably dressed women in their 20s and 30s who pause to admire a vast array of baked goods - from pumpkin cupcakes made with a blend of rice, tapioca and potato flour to loaves of wheat-free, whole-grain sunflower bread.

"I was one of [its] first customers," says Brystal Rosensweig, 21, a student who started visiting the shop when it opened in 2010 and has been gluten-free for 3 1/2 years.
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Heart - Black

Depression Affects Brain Hate Circuit


Press TV
Wed, 05 Oct 2011 09:12 UTC
brain
© unknownFunctional Brain MRI
Brain imaging of depressed individuals shows that they have abnormalities in their brains' hate circuit, pathways that normally control the feeling of dislike.

In healthy people the circuit that connects the brain's superior frontal gyrus, insula and putamen regions usually controls the feeling of hatred. A new study, however, say the wiring may weaken when a person is suffering from depression.

Researchers in the UK and China used fMRI scans for comparing brain functions of 15 people with untreated depression, 24 people whose depression had not responded to multiple antidepressants and 37 healthy controls.

Findings showed that depressed people had weakened connections between the superior and inferior orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) on the left side of the brain, but stronger connections on the right side of the brain, researchers wrote in the journal Molecular Psychiatry.
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Ambulance

Stress 'is top cause of workplace sickness' and is so widespread it's dubbed the 'Black Death of the 21st century'

Becky Barrow
MailOnline
Wed, 05 Oct 2011 09:43 UTC
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© UnknownPressure: Stress has become the commonest cause of absence from work

Stress has become the most common reason for a worker being signed off long-term sick, a report reveals today.

Experts said the psychological condition had become so widespread that it was the '21st century equivalent of the Black Death'.

Jill Miller, an adviser to the institute, says the report 'highlights the heightened pressure many people feel under in the workplace as a result of the prolonged economic downturn'.

Stress was found to be especially common at firms that have announced redundancies.

Long-term absence is defined as taking four weeks or more off at one time because of sickness.
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