Health & WellnessS


Syringe

Best of the Web: Are Vaccines Obsolete?

P Daniels
Salem-News.com
Mon, 02 May 2011 17:33 UTC
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© Salem-News.orgMany question the benefits.
Autism and vaccines, a surprising connection.

CBS has opened with the questions surrounding vaccination in broadcasting work by Helen Ratajczak.

"The article in the Journal of Immunotoxicology is entitled 'Theoretical aspects of autism: Causes--A review.' The author is Helen Ratajczak, surprisingly herself a former senior scientist at a pharmaceutical firm. Ratajczak did what nobody else apparently has bothered to do: she reviewed the body of published science since autism was first described in 1943. Not just one theory suggested by research such as the role of MMR shots, or the mercury preservative thimerosal; but all of them.

Ratajczak's article states, in part, that "Documented causes of autism include genetic mutations and/or deletions, viral infections, and encephalitis [brain damage] following vaccination [emphasis added]. Therefore, autism is the result of genetic defects and/or inflammation of the brain." ...
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Attention

US: Diabetes is taking a deadly toll

John W. Griffin and Victor H. Gonzalez, M.D.
Houston Chronicle
Sat, 07 May 2011 16:45 UTC
Every day in this country, there is a silent killer among us. It's more deadly than breast cancer and AIDS combined. Unless we join together and continue to fund our nation's effort to stop this epidemic, we will be unable to stop it.

Nearly 26 million Americans are living with diabetes, and an additional 79 million have prediabetes and are at high risk for developing this terrible disease. Diabetes is serious, costly and deadly - and a threat to our nation's health care system and economy. One out of every five health care dollars is spent caring for someone with diagnosed diabetes, while one in ten health care dollars is attributed to diabetes. The national price tag for diabetes-related costs, including undiagnosed diabetes, prediabetes and gestational diabetes is a shocking $218 billion per year. Costly complications such as amputations, blindness and kidney disease will continue to grow unless we fund diabetes programs aimed at finding a cure and preventing needless tragedies.
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Eye 1

California votes to label (but not ban) GMO frankenfish


Red Green & Blue
Wed, 04 May 2011 12:44 UTC
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With the USDA expected to approve genetically modified (GMO) salmon in the near future - without any serious safety research - it may devolve on the states to try to minimize the potential negative impact.

The California Assembly Health Committee in Sacramento on May 3 approved a bill requiring that all GMO salmon sold in California contain clear and prominent labeling.

Assemblymember Jared Huffman introduced the bill, AB 88, due to widespread dissatisfaction by consumer, fishing and environmental groups and Indian Tribes with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) current review of the first-ever proposed commercialization of genetically engineered (GE) Aqua-Bounty salmon.
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Bacon

B12 deficiency: a silent epidemic with serious consequences

Chris Kresser
Thehealthyskeptic.com
Fri, 06 May 2011 10:09 UTC
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© Unknown
What do all of these diseases have in common?

  • Alzheimer's, dementia, cognitive decline and memory loss (collectively referred to as "aging")
  • Multiple sclerosis (MS) and other neurological disorders
  • Mental illness (depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, psychosis)
  • Cardiovascular disease
  • Learning or developmental disorders in kids
  • Autism spectrum disorder
  • Autoimmune disease and immune dysregulation
  • Cancer
  • Male and female infertility
Answer: they can all be caused by vitamin B12 deficiency.

B12 deficiency: an invisible epidemic

B12 deficiency isn't a bizarre, mysterious disease. It's written about in every medical textbook and its causes and effects are well-established in the scientific literature.

However, B12 deficiency is far more common than most health care practitioners and the general public realize. Data from the Tufts University Framingham Offspring Study suggest that 40 percent of people between the ages of 26 and 83 have plasma B12 levels in the low normal range - a range at which many experience neurological symptoms. 9 percent had outright deficiency, and 16 percent exhibited "near deficiency". Most surprising to the researchers was the fact that low B12 levels were as common in younger people as they were in the elderly.

That said, B12 deficiency has been estimated to affect about 40% of people over 60 years of age. It's entirely possible that at least some of the symptoms we attribute to "normal" aging - such as memory loss, cognitive decline, decreased mobility, etc. - are at least in part caused by B12 deficiency.
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Magnify

Best of the Web: A Spoon Full of Sugar.... Is Toxic?

Laura Casey
Contra Costa Times
Fri, 06 May 2011 15:23 UTC
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© greenprophet.com
An academic lecture that lasts nearly 90 minutes usually will get about a million yawns and, if lucky, a hundred hits on YouTube.

But a recently discovered talk by a Bay Area doctor with a fresh take on the obesity epidemic recently rocketed the YouTube video to viral status. Supporting the thesis that sugar is nothing short of "poison," Dr. Robert Lustig, a professor of clinical pediatrics in the division of endocrinology at UCSF, clearly has hit a nerve. And his no-nonsense message about health and sugar is spreading through media channels like wildfire.


Comment: Watch Dr. Robert Lustig's 90 minute lecture: Sugar: The Bitter Truth


The U.S. will not get a handle on the obesity epidemic, Lustig says, if the public continues to view obesity as the result of gluttony and sloth. No one chooses to be fat, especially not the thousands of babies and toddlers in the United States who are obese or at risk for it. That's why obesity should be seen as a public health crisis on the level of AIDS rather than a personal responsibility issue, he argues.
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Family

A curious clue? Women infected with toxoplasmosis are more likely to have boys


Springer
Wed, 11 Oct 2006 16:15 UTC
Women infected with dormant toxoplasmosis are more likely to give birth to boys than women who are Toxoplasma negative, according to research by S. Kankova and colleagues from the Departments of Parasitology, Microbiology and Zoology, Charles University; the Centre of Reproductive Medicine; and GynCentrum, in the Czech Republic. They found that the presence of the parasite Toxoplasma gondii in the mothers' blood, one of the most common parasites in humans with a worldwide prevalence of 20-80%, increased the likelihood that these women would give birth to a boy. This is the first study1, published in Springer's journal Naturwissenschaften this week, to suggest an effect of parasitic infection on the sex of a baby.

Kankova and colleagues analysed the effect of latent (or dormant) toxoplasmosis2 on the probability of the birth of a boy in humans. Latent toxoplasmosis is asymptomatic but is usually a life-long infection characterised by the presence of anti-Toxoplasma antibodies in the blood.

They analysed over 1800 clinical records of babies born between 1996-2004 in private maternity clinics in the Czech Republic. Women attending these private clinics were routinely tested for toxoplasmosis. The records contained information on the mother's age, the concentration of anti-Toxoplasma antibodies in the mother's blood, previous deliveries and abortions, and the sex of the newborn.
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Nuke

Radiation Protection: Your Child and Your Pregnancy...


FortifyHealth
Wed, 04 May 2011 11:07 UTC
radiation sticker
© n/a
As multiple nuclear reactors in Fukushima exhaust their particles into the ocean and atmosphere, certain species and categories of life prove their greater or lesser cellular vulnerability.

Radiation affects cells that are in vulnerable phases of their life cycles. The most vulnerable times of life are in the pre and peri-natal stages, and therefore women who are pregnant. It is CRUCIAL that we understand that everything that happens to a pregnant mother, whether it be radiation exposure, drugs prescription or otherwise, alcohol, emotional trauma... are felt and IMPRINTED into the fetus. The child's physical and emotional health will then be influenced by those factors. It's a miracle we all aren't sick or insane. On the other hand, we have one crazy planet on our hands.

The remaining population with great vulnerability is those that are already compromised by weakened immune systems such as in HIV, post-chemotherapy patients and some auto-immune disorders. This article summarizes the reasons why pregnant women and infants through pubescent individuals are more likely to be affected by radiation, and what can be done to optimize their own protective mechanisms besides adding challenges to their immune systems such as dietary toxins (artificial sweeteners, sugar, processed meats, toxic fats).
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People

Toxoplasma gondii: Cat parasite may affect cultural traits in human populations


University of California - Santa Barbara
Wed, 02 Aug 2006 07:50 UTC
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© Unknown
A common parasite found in cats may be affecting human behavior on a mass scale, according to a scientist based at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

While little is known about the causes of cultural change, and biological explanations often stimulate social and scientific debate, a new study by the U.S. Geological Survey published in the August 2 issue of the Proceedings of the Royal Society, Biology, indicates that behavioral manipulation of a common brain parasite may be among factors that play a role.

"In populations where this parasite is very common, mass personality modification could result in cultural change," said study author Kevin Lafferty, a USGS scientist at UC Santa Barbara. "The geographic variation in the latent prevalence of Toxoplasma gondii may explain a substantial proportion of human population differences we see in cultural aspects that relate to ego, money, material possessions, work and rules."

Although this sounds like science fiction, it is a logical outcome of how natural selection leads to effective strategies for parasites to get from host to host, said Lafferty. Toxoplasma gondii is a parasite of cats, both domestic and wild. While modern humans are a dead-end host for the parasite, Toxoplasma appears to manipulate personality by the same adaptations that normally help it complete its life cycle. The typical journey of the parasite involves a cat and its prey, starting as eggs shed in an infected cat's feces, inadvertently eaten by a warm-blooded animal, such as a rat. The infected rat's behavior alters so that it becomes more active, less cautious and more likely to be eaten by a cat, where the parasite completes its life cycle. Many other warm-blooded vertebrates may be infected by this pathogen. After producing usually mild flu-like symptoms in humans, the parasite tends to remain in a dormant state in the brain and other tissues.
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Bulb

Your Brain On Ketones: How a High-fat Diet Can Help the Brain Work Better

Emily Deans
Psychology Today
Mon, 18 Apr 2011 07:06 UTC
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© Unknown
The modern prescription of high carbohydrate, low fat diets and eating snacks between meals has coincided with an increase in obesity, diabetes, and and increase in the incidence of many mental health disorders, including depression, anxiety, and eating disorders. In addition, many of these disorders are striking the population at younger ages. While most people would agree that diet has a lot to do with the development of obesity and diabetes, many would disagree that what we eat has much to do with our mental health and outlook. I believe that what we eat has a lot to do with the health of our brains, though of course mental illness (like physical illness) has multifactorial causes, and by no means should we diminish the importance of addressing all the causes in each individual. But let's examine the opposite of the modern high carbohydrate, low fat, constant snacking lifestyle and how that might affect the brain.

The opposite of a low fat, snacking lifestyle would be the lifestyle our ancestors lived for tens of thousands of generations, the lifestyle for which our brains are primarily evolved. It seems reasonable that we would have had extended periods without food, either because there was none available, or we were busy doing something else. Then we would follow that period with a filling meal of gathered plant and animal products, preferentially selecting the fat. During the day we might have eaten a piece of fruit, or greens, or a grub we dug up, but anything filling or high in calories (such as a starchy tuber) would have to be killed, butchered, and/or carefully prepared before eating. Fortunately, we have a terrific system of fuel for periods of fasting or low carbohydrate eating - our body (and brain) can readily shift from burning glucose to burning what are called ketone bodies.
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Attention

Low Cholesterol and Suicide: Your Brain Needs Cholesterol

Emily Deans
Evolutionary Psychiatry
Sat, 03 Jul 2010 03:17 UTC
depression
© Unknown
Low serum cholesterol has been linked in numerous scientific papers to suicide, accidents, and violence (1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7)... there are a bunch more, but I'm a bit weary of linking! This is why I write a blog, and not a peer-reviewed journal. Anyway, no one knows to this day whether depression, violence, and suicidal risk have a metabolic byproduct of low cholesterol, or whether having low cholesterol will predispose you to suicide out of hand (here's a rather snarky editorial pointing out that fact (8)). Some trials of statins (with the resultant crackerjack drop in cholesterol) will show no effect on suicide (9). A statin skeptic's favorite study, the J-LIT trial, showed deaths by accidents/suicides increased threefold in the group with total cholesterol less than 160 (yes, the p was .09, but that means there is only a 91% chance that finding didn't happen by random happenstance (10)).

Now, why could serum cholesterol have anything to do with the brain and depression? Good question - and the first question to ask in any theory of the brain is do the peripheral levels of something have anything at all to do with the central nervous system amounts of the same thing - so do serum cholesterol levels match up to relative amounts of cholesterol in the brain? They do (11). And cholesterol is important in the brain. Synapses, where brain function goes live, have to have cholesterol to form. Brain signaling is all about membranes, and cell membranes are constructed from fat. Cholesterol and the omega 3 and 6 fatty acids are the most important molecules in the synapse. If your brain fat is significantly different from so-called "normal" fat (which I'll go back to the hunter gatherer paradigm and say an HG's brain is going to have the approximate fat constituents for which we are evolved), the signaling in your brain could be very different too (12). Scientific papers will call this "alterations of membrane fluidity." (13).
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