Health & Wellness
"Swapping genes between organisms can produce unknown toxic effects and allergies that are most likely to affect children." - Vyvyan Howard, expert in infant toxico-pathology at Liverpool University Hospital, United Kingdom
Changes in nutrition have a greater impact on the structure and functioning of young, fast-growing bodies. More of the food is converted to build organs and tissues, whereas adults convert more to energy and store this as fat.
The UK Royal Society said that genetic modification "could lead to unpredicted harmful changes in the nutritional state of foods" and recommended that potential health effects of GM foods be rigorously researched before being fed to pregnant or breast-feeding women and babies." Epidemiologist Eric Brunner said that "small changes to the nutritional content might have effects on infant bowel function."
Jonathan Lucas Levine should be celebrating his 21st birthday this month. Probably he would be in college by now, studying to be a math professor or perhaps a psychologist. Surely he would have plenty of friends. The way other kids used to follow him around, his mom dubbed him the Pied Piper.
Instead, Donna Levine sits in her Orlando, Fla., apartment surrounded by photos of her only child and tries not to cry again. Three years ago this month, at 18, Jonathan died of a drug overdose.
Among the mix of chemicals in his system was methadone - a drug that is readily available, relatively cheap and legal. The medical examiner ruled that methadone was the key ingredient that made the overdose lethal.
It starts with the health that comes just from physical activity: Gardening is proven to be great exercise. And that, I think, comes from our stubbornness; gardeners want to have things a certain way, so we find superhuman strength to move plants, rocks, logs, or whatever else it takes to make our gardens just right. All that weight lifting, bending, and stretching, while leaving us sore the next day, also builds good bone strength and muscles - especially as we age. I bet there are few gardeners who have sufficient vitamin D thanks to gardening in the sun (and occasional rainfall)!
"You're never too old to develop celiac disease," says Alessio Fasano, M.D., director of the University of Maryland's Mucosal Biology Research Center and the celiac research center, which led the study. The Universita Politecnica delle Marche in Ancona, Italy; the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health; the Women & Children's Hospital of Buffalo; and Quest Diagnostics Inc. of San Juan Capistrano, Calif., also participated.
"Human genetics is not destiny, particularly when it comes to a love for coffee and chocolate," Drewnowski said. "All the women tested, regardless of their ability to taste bitterness, enjoyed chocolate. But the ones who were more sensitive to bitter flavors would drink lattés, rather than straight espresso coffee."
Experts agree that an aerobic exercise routine during the day can keep you from tossing and turning at night, even if they're not sure why.
"The bottom line is we really don't know why people tell us that exercise helps them sleep," said David Davila of the U.S.-based National Sleep Foundation.
"But if people are normally active, reaching their aerobic goals, chances are they will sleep the right amount for what they need."
Dr. Davila, who practices sleep medicine in Little Rock, Arkansas, said the low-grade sleep deprivation suffered by many time-pressed, under-rested adults has a cumulative effect.
"People have more car accidents and what they call 'presentee-ism', or poor performance, at work," he said. "There are fallouts for the average person."
The accuracy of this statement depends, of course, on how you define "genetically modified." If you include traditional genetic crosses done through plant and animal breeding, the statement is correct.
If, however, you restrict the definition of GM foods to those involving actual manipulations of DNA (rather than eggs and sperm), and the insertion of DNA from one organism into the DNA of another, then the number of GM foods approved for production in the United States is quite limited.
People who consumed the most magnesium in foods and from vitamin supplements were about half as likely to develop diabetes over the next 20 years as people who took in the least magnesium, Dr. Ka He of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and colleagues found.
The results may explain in part why consuming whole grains, which are high in magnesium, is also associated with lower diabetes risk. However, large clinical trials testing the effects of magnesium on diabetes risk are needed to determine whether a causal relationship truly exists, the researchers note in Diabetes Care.












Comment: To learn more about how Magnesium can help with overall health and wellness read the following forum thread: The Magnesium Miracle
In addition read: Magnesium Supplement Helps Boost Brainpower