Health & WellnessS


Eye 2

Ireland to implement EU push to bring GM crops into Europe

Image
© Jayegirl99 via FlickrGenetically modified maize varieties will be approved for use in the EU and Ireland
The outgoing Minister for Agriculture has said that the sale of food products made from genetically modified ingredients will be tolerated in Ireland.

Brendan Smith has said today in a statement that Ireland had "altered its voting position" and will back proposals from the EU Commission "aimed at authorising the placing on the market of food, food ingredients and feed containing, consisting of, or produced from genetically modified maize and cotton".

Smith also said that Ireland would now tolerate "the low-level presence of, as yet, unauthorised GM varieties in imports of animal food".

The statement of the U-turn on the attitude towards GM food products came after a meeting of the EU Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health in Brussels today.

Heart

Food for thought - diet does boost your intelligence

Children brought up on healthy diets are more intelligent compared with their junk food eating counterparts, new research suggests.
Image
© AlamyParents were quizzed about the types and frequency of the food and drink their children consumed when they were three, four, seven and eight and a half years old

Toddlers fed a diet packed high in fats, sugars, and processed foods had lower IQs than those fed pasta, salads and fruit, it was found.

The effect is so great that researchers from the University of Bristol said those children with a "healthier" diet may get an IQ boost.

Scientists stressed good diet was vital in a child's early life as the brain grows at its fastest rate during the first three years of life.

This indicated head growth at this time is linked to intellectual ability and "it is possible that good nutrition during this period may encourage optimal brain growth".

Scientists tracked the long term health and wellbeing of around 14,000 children born in 1991 and 1992 as part of the West Country's Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC).

Light Saber

A Primal Primer: Stevia

Image
After last week's article many of you asked about a natural alternative to sugar and artificial sweeteners: stevia. It is widely used in the low carb community to satisfy sugar cravings or simply add a touch of sweetness to a hot beverage or dessert, but should it be? What is stevia? Is it safe? What is its effect on insulin, if any, and does it have a place in a Primal Blueprint eating strategy? Let's investigate.

Stevia is an herbaceous family of plants, 240 species strong, that grows in sub-tropical and tropical America (mostly South and Central, but some North). Stevia the sweetener refers to stevia rebaudiana, the plant and its leaves, which you can grow and use as or with tea (it was traditionally paired with yerba mate in South America) or, dried and powdered, as a sugar substitute that you sprinkle on. It's apparently quite easy to grow (according to the stevia seller who tries to get me to buy a plant or two whenever I'm at the Santa Monica farmers' market), and the raw leaf is very sweet.

Most stevia you'll come across isn't in its raw, unprocessed form, but in powdered or liquid extract form. The "sweet" lies in the steviol glycosides - stevioside and rebaudioside - which are isolated in these extracts. Some products use just one, while others use both stevioside and rebaudioside. Stevioside is the most prevalent glycoside in stevia, and some say it provides the bitter aftertaste that people sometimes complain about; rebaudioside is said to be the better tasting steviol glycoside, with far less bitterness. Most of the "raw or natural" stevia products use the full range of glycosides, but the more processed brands will most likely isolate one or more of the steviol glycosides. The popular Truvia brand of stevia products uses only rebaudioside, as do both PureVia and Enliten. Different brands provide different conversion rates, but compared to sucrose, stevioside is generally about 250-300 times as sweet and rebaudioside is about 350-450 times as sweet.

Health

A Prescription for Fear

red computers
© Kevin Van Aelst / The New York Times
If you're looking for the name of a new pill to "ask your doctor about," as the ads say, the Mayo Clinic Health Information site is not the place for you. If you're shopping for a newly branded disorder that might account for your general feeling of unease, Mayo is not for you either. But if you want workaday, can-do health information in a nonprofit environment, plug your symptoms into Mayo's Symptom Checker. What you'll get is: No hysteria. No drug peddling. Good medicine. Good ideas.

This is very, very rare on the medical Web, which is dominated by an enormous and powerful site whose name - oh, what the hay, it's WebMD - has become a panicky byword among laysurfers for "hypochondria time suck." In more whistle-blowing quarters, WebMD is synonymous with Big Pharma Shilling. A February 2010 investigation into WebMD's relationship with drug maker Eli Lilly by Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa confirmed the suspicions of longtime WebMD users. With the site's (admitted) connections to pharmaceutical and other companies, WebMD has become permeated with pseudomedicine and subtle misinformation.

Because of the way WebMD frames health information commercially, using the meretricious voice of a pharmaceutical rep, I now recommend that anyone except advertising executives whose job entails monitoring product placement actually block WebMD. It's not only a waste of time, but it's also a disorder in and of itself - one that preys on the fear and vulnerability of its users to sell them half-truths and, eventually, pills.

But if careering around the Web doing symptom searches is your bag (and, come on, we've all been there), there's still MayoClinic.com. Where WebMD is a corporation that started as an ad-supported health-alarmism site with revenues of $504 million in 2010, the Mayo Clinic is a nonprofit medical-practice-and-research group that started as a clinic. Mayo's storied past as the country's premier research hospital, in Rochester, Minn., and its storied present as one of Fortune's "100 Best Companies to Work For" surface in the integrity of the site itself, which - though not ad-free - is spare and neatly organized, with the measured, learned voice of the best doctors. The byline for most entries is "Mayo Clinic staff." The integrity of the whole institution is on the line with this site, and the Mayo Clinic has every motivation to keep its information authoritative and up to date.

Attention

Exposure to Pesticides in Womb Linked to Learning Disabilities

Image
© chelationtherapyonline.com
Babies exposed to high levels of pesticides while in the womb may suffer from learning problems, a new study suggests.

The study focused on a chemical called permethrin, one of the pyrethroid pesticides, commonly used in agriculture and to kill termites, fleas and household bugs, says lead author Megan Horton of the Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health. Most of the pregnant women in this New York-based study were exposed by spraying for cockroaches.

Permethrin - among the most commonly detected pesticides in homes - is being used more often today as older organophosphorous pesticides are phased out because of concerns that they harm brain development, says Horton, whose study is being published today in Pediatrics.

Attention

U.S.: Pharmacy Mistakenly Gives Pregnant Woman Abortion Pill

Safeway Mix-Up Could Cost Woman Her Unborn Child

She is six weeks pregnant and when she went to the pharmacy to pick up an antibiotic her doctor had prescribed, the pharmacist gave her an abortion drug by mistake.

Mareena Silva might lose her unborn child because of the prescription drug error, which occurred last Thursday.

Sun

Sun Exposure, Vitamin D May Lower Risk of Multiple Sclerosis

Image
© n/a
People who spend more time in the sun and those with higher vitamin D levels may be less likely to develop multiple sclerosis (MS), according to a study published in the February 8, 2011, print issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. MS is a chronic disease of the brain and spinal cord, usually with recurrent flare-ups of symptoms. It is often preceded by a first episode (or event) of similar symptoms lasting days to weeks.

"Previous studies have found similar results, but this is the first study to look at people who have just had the first symptoms of MS and haven't even been diagnosed with the disease yet," said study author Robyn Lucas, PhD, of Australian National University in Canberra.
"Other studies have looked at people who already have MS - then it's hard to know whether having the disease led them to change their habits in the sun or in their diet."
The multi-site study involved 216 people age 18 to 59 who had a first event with symptoms of the type seen in MS. Those people were matched with 395 people with no symptoms of possible MS who were of similar ages, of the same sex and from the same regions of Australia.

Comment: For more information about the health benefits of Vitamin D read the following articles:

The virtues of Vitamin D: It's time we saw the light
"Sunshine Vitamin" Earning New Respect
Report Claims: Vitamin D Better than Vaccines at Preventing Flu
Study: Vitamin D linked to heart health
Chronic Pain: Does Vitamin D Help?
High Levels of Vitamin D in Older People Can Reduce Heart Disease and Diabetes


Cheeseburger

Junk Food Diet Linked to Lower IQ

junk food
© AFP
Toddlers who have a diet high in processed foods may have a slightly lower IQ in later life, according to a British study described as the biggest research of its kind.

The conclusion, published on Monday, comes from a long-term investigation into 14,000 people born in western England in 1991 and 1992 whose health and well-being were monitored at the ages of three, four, seven and eight and a half.

Parents of the children were asked to fill out questionnaires that, among other things, detailed the kind of food and drink their children consumed.

Three dietary patterns emerged: one was high in processed fats and sugar; then there was a "traditional" diet high in meat and vegetables; and finally a "health-conscious" diet with lots of salad, fruit and vegetables, pasta and rice.

When the children were eight and a half, their IQ was measured using a standard tool called the Wechsler Intelligence Scale.

Of the 4,000 children for which there were complete data, there was a significant difference in IQ among those who had had the "processed" as opposed to the "health-conscious" diets in early childhood.

The 20 percent of children who ate the most processed food had an average IQ of 101 points, compared with 106 for the 20 percent of children who ate the most "health-conscious" food.

Heart

Late nights can lead to higher risk of strokes and heart attacks

Image
© Unknown
New research from Warwick Medical School published today in the European Heart Journal shows that prolonged sleep deprivation and disrupted sleep patterns can have long-term, serious health implications. Leading academics from the University have linked lack of sleep to strokes, heart attacks and cardiovascular disorders which often result in early death.

Professor Francesco Cappuccio from the University of Warwick Medical School, explained: "If you sleep less than six hours per night and have disturbed sleep you stand a 48 per cent greater chance of developing or dying from heart disease and a 15 per cent greater chance of developing or dying of a stroke.

"The trend for late nights and early mornings is actually a ticking time bomb for our health so you need to act now to reduce your risk of developing these life-threatening conditions."

Professor Cappuccio and co-author Dr Michelle Miller, from the University of Warwick, conducted the research programme which followed up evidence from seven to 25 years from more than 470,000 participants from eight countries including Japan, USA, Sweden and UK.

Beaker

Food Dyes: The Toxic Situation

Image
© food freedom Network
Over the decades, Americans have become riddled with disease, obesity and cancer. Most of these problems stem from the lack of unaltered food in our diets and nothing is being done to stop additives, and genetically modified foods that are massed produced for American consumption. Keep in mind that the United States is one of the only civilized nations that does not have strict regulation on nutrition labeling. Which gives companies free reign to lie about what goes into their food. The European Union (EU) recently placed regulations on labeling food dyes to inform consumers of the health risks he/she will take by ingesting food dyes: "the European Union required foods sold in Europe to include a warning label if they contain artificial food dyes, which said have been linked to health and behavioral problems, especially in children." Please don't take this as a promotion of the EU as a whole, the EU itself is a debate of it's own. The EU is presently in the process of banning the growth/sale of many beneficial medicinal herbs. All in all, the EU and the UN are a big problem for the world as a whole. But for the sake of the article at hand, we will continue.

Food dyes are one of the most widely used and dangerous additives that have been around for a long time, and took a turn for the worse in the early 1900s. They are often added to foods to mask poor product quality or spoiled stock; 'natural' variations in color; protecting foods from color loss; temperature; moisture; air; and storage conditions. "The bulk of chemically synthesized colors were derived from aniline, a petroleum product that in pure form is toxic. Originally, these were dubbed "coal-tar" colors because the starting materials were obtained from bituminous coal". The following website describes the Toxicity of Aniline which is a man-made chemical that is still widely used in food dyes today. As you scroll through the site, nothing indicates that this chemical is safe in any regards for human consumption at any level. Food dyes are used in baked goods, beverages, candies, gelatin, sodas, juice, pet food and things you would not suspect such as Florida oranges and salmon.