Health & WellnessS


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Junk Food Mountain: The Astonishing Amount of Rubbish One Child Eats Every Year

Claire Cohen
Daily Mail
Mon, 12 Jul 2010 17:50 UTC
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© Murray SandersHere we've amassed the average amount of typical snacks, fast food and treats eaten by children between the ages of four and ten in just one year. Scroll down for a breakdown of each food category
This shocking picture, with its piles of oven chips, mini rolls and tubs of ice cream, represents just how much junk food one child in the UK consumes in a year.

It is perhaps unsurprising then that today's children have been labeled the 'junk food generation', with a third of youngsters aged five to 13 already considered obese.

Despite this, the Conservatives have decided to axe the watchdog that was set up a decade ago to regulate the junk-food companies.

The Food Standards Agency was set up in 2000 to hold food firms to account after a series of scandals in which people had died from food-borne illnesses such as e.coli and CJD.

But today Health Secretary Andrew Lansley will unveil a long-awaited white paper containing plans to abolish it as part of a 'bonfire of quangos'.
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Sherlock

Meet the Food Industry Front Groups That Push for Carcinogens in Your Food

Jill Richardson
Alternet
Tue, 06 Jul 2010 17:06 UTC
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© unknown
Pseudoscience, front groups and smear campaigns against scientists questioning industrial agriculture are used to convince the public that chemical-ridden food is safe.

"You've probably heard of the 'Dirty Dozen' - a list of produce items identified by the Environmental Working Group that reportedly contain too many pesticide residues. I thought you might like to know about this webinar that provides perspective on pesticide residues," said an email sent by Elizabeth Pivonka, a registered dietitian who serves as the president and CEO for the Produce for Better Health Foundation.
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Family

Who Controls Our Children ? (Public Education Dumb Down Kids)


Google Videos
Mon, 12 Jul 2010 14:34 UTC
While parents, schools, provinces and states across North America bicker about the democratic process of running public schools, forces are manipulating education from behind the scenes. Major international players are reshaping public education to suit their own self-serving agendas, without regard for the wants of parents and the welfare of their children. This video lecture documents how today's educational system dumb down kids deliberately, making zombie-like people who don't ask any questions but just follow orders.
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Health

Diabetes Is Not A Disease Of Blood Sugar

Ron Rosedale, MD
Mercola.com
Tue, 31 May 2005 20:31 UTC
As I have stated previously, and one concept that I would like to make well-known to save thousands and perhaps millions of lives as soon as possible, is that diabetes is not a disease of blood sugar, but a disease of insulin and perhaps more importantly leptin signaling, and until that concept becomes well-known in the medical community, articles like the one published in this issue will fortunately continue to be published revealing the inadequacy of current conventional medical treatment for chronic diseases such as diabetes and heart disease, and the falsity of their advice about nutrition.

Typically treatment concentrates on fixing a symptom, in this case elevated blood sugar, rather than the underlying disease. Symptoms are generally the way that nature has taught our bodies to deal with a disease. For instance, a runny nose is a symptom designed to cleanse the nose and sinuses of viruses and bacteria when one has a "cold." Taking a decongestant just inhibits our own body's mechanism for dealing with that infection and will therefore prolong it.
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Health

How Dietary Supplements Reduce Health Care Costs

Dr. Mark Hyman
Huffington Post
Sat, 10 Jul 2010 19:43 UTC

Spending just pennies a day on healthcare can reduce our expenditures by $24 billion over five years.

New research from the Lewin Group has shown that spending pennies a day on a few key nutritional supplements can dramatically reduce sickness and chronic disease - and greatly decrease healthcare expenditures as a result.(i) How did they come to this conclusion? And why haven't we heard about it
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Target

One Supertoxic Chemical Down, Thousands To Go

Tom Laskawy
Grist
Tue, 15 Jun 2010 18:39 UTC
Image
© unknown
Last week, and capping at least a decades-long battle by consumer advocates, the EPA announced a long-awaited ban on the pesticide endosulfan - one of the last legal organochlorine pesticides, a notorious group of which DDT is a member. Horrifically toxic (possibly more toxic to humans than DDT) and banned in the European Union since 2007, endosulfan remains in common - though technically restricted - use, especially on Florida tomatoes and California and Nevada cotton, according to the Pesticide Action Network, while an article in the Environmental Health News presents a much longer list of uses, including melons, cucumbers, squashes, potatoes, apples, blueberries, eggplant, lettuce and other leafy vegetables, pears, peppers and stone fruit and cotton.

Endosulfan also easily spreads through the air (no doubt like the nerve gases from which pesticides such as this were derived). A 2008 National Park Service report found significant levels of endosulfan throughout Western national park eco-systems, even when there was no nearby agricultural use. A Scientific American article observed, unlike its organochlorine brethren, endosulfan's environmental concentrations "have been increasing since the 1980s in the Arctic and in other remote ecosystems." As a result of all this and along with other data released during the EPA's lengthy re-examination of the pesticide, California delared endosulfan to be a "toxic air contaminant" in 2008.
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Attention

Expanded Tylenol recall aggravates Johnson & Johnson headache

Ransdell Pierson
Reuters
Thu, 08 Jul 2010 18:27 UTC
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© Paul Sakuma, file / AP PhotoIn this June 30, 2009 file photo, Tylenol Extra Strenth is shown in a medicine cabinet at a home in Palo Alto, Calif. Johnson & Johnson is expanding a recall of over-the-counter drugs Thursday, July 8, 2010, including Tylenol and Motrin IB because of a musty or moldy smell.
Johnson & Johnson's string of product recalls grew on Thursday as the company recalled 21 more lots of Tylenol and other over-the-counter medicines linked to a musty or moldy odor.

The diversified healthcare company said the action, like one announced three weeks ago, is a follow-up to a recall on January 15 that involved 53 million bottles of various products.

The original recall was initiated after consumers complained about odors that were later traced to a chemical called TBA present in wooden pallets used to ship and store the medicines.
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Question

Could an ingredient in your sunscreen harm you?

Brooke Anderson
kypost.com
Thu, 08 Jul 2010 18:07 UTC
Image
© iStock.com
Do you know what's in your sunscreen? According to one research group, not knowing your suncreen may mean you and your family are not as protected as you think.

You may think lathering on sunscreen will keep you safe, but do you know what chemicals are in your sunscreen? Researchers with the Environmental Working Group, or EWG, studied over 2,000 types of sunscreens and found some may be better than others when it comes to protecting us.

"You want to look out for sunscreens with oxybenzone," says Jane Houlihan, PhD, of the Environmental Working Group.

Comment: For more information on the growing concerns of sunscreen read the following articles:

Study: Many Sunscreens May Be Accelerating Cancer
Toxic Fears Spark Some Parents to Rethink Sunscreen
More Bad News About Sunscreens: Nanoparticles
Senator asks FDA to Share Data on Possible Sunscreen Chemical-Cancer Link

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Info

Non-Toxic Health Tips


blog.saferchemicals.org
Wed, 07 Jul 2010 17:50 UTC
Good health is precious, and Americans invest significant amounts of time and money to protect it. But many people are waking up to the fact that, despite their vigilance, they are surrounded by products made with harmful chemicals.

Ultimately, we won't get safer products - made from chemicals tested for safety before coming onto the market - until the federal law governing chemicals is strengthened. While we're working on fixing the law, there are some basic things you can do to protect you and your family from toxic chemicals.
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Attention

Twenty Percent of BP Clean-up Workers Have Toxic Levels of Corexit Chemicals In Their Body


MSNBC
Sat, 10 Jul 2010 15:21 UTC
MSNBC's Keith Obermann reports that environmental scientists testified to Congress that the use of oil dispersants does nothing except reduce the oil's visibility thereby hiding evidence of the magnitude of the leak's ongoing damage. Further, the dispersant, Corexit, is extremely toxic to life. Nevertheless, BP has dumped hundreds of thousands of gallons into the Gulf even though the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) told it not to do so.

The result? So far 20 percent of offshore clean-up workers and 15 percent of near-shore clean-up works were tested and found to have levels of 2-Butoxyethanol (used in Corexit) that were measured at 10 parts per million - twice the limit specified by the Center for Disease Control (CDC).

Meanwhile, British Petroleum is not allowing clean-up workers to use biohazard suits and resperators - even though one way to get 2-Butoxyethanol toxicity is to simply breath the air in the vicinity of the chemical.

Wikipedia reports that "Moderate respiratory exposure to 2-butoxyethanol often results in irritation of mucous membranes of the eyes, nose and throat. Heavy exposure via respiratory, dermal or oral routes can lead to hypotension, metabolic acidosis, hemolysis, pulmonary edema and coma."

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