Health & Wellness
© The Nation
We've heard how it will reduce the environmental impact of farming by lowering pesticide use. We've been promised that it will increase the nutritional content of food. We've been told how it will boost farmers' profits by increasing yields, and that those increased yields will help "feed the world."
As the problem of man-made climate change has moved to the top of the global agenda, new promises have emerged about how GMOs will fight climate change and how genetic engineering will make plants more resilient to drought and flooding. The huckster promises keep on coming, but what has the biotech industry actually delivered over nearly three decades?
Fake meat - Real concerns
Gale Ferranto's mushroom farm in Chester County, Pennsylvania produces 5 million pounds of mushrooms annually.
People are scooping up mushrooms so quickly that producers are scrambling to keep pace with burgeoning demand."We haven't run out as yet, but we're definitely trying hard to keep up," said Gale Ferranto, who helps run her family's third-generation business, Bella Mushroom Farms, in Chester County, Pennsylvania.
Chester County, about a two-hour drive southwest from New York City, is the epicenter of mushroom production in the United States.
"We call it the Mushroom Mecca," said Ferranto. The area accounts for more than 60% of all domestic mushroom production coming from more than 50 local family-owned farms.
Comment: Read more about the healing power of mushrooms:
- Chaga mushroom tea: The many benefits of this health-boosting beverage
- Study finds mushrooms may have 'fountain of youth' benefits; contain important antioxidants
- Combat aging, disease & cancer with Lingzhi mushrooms
- Cordyceps: The unique mushroom that balances hormones
- Medicinal mushrooms cut herpes suffering time in half
- Mushrooms and their anti-aging potentials
The present-day definitions of Osteopenia and Osteoporosis were arbitrarily conceived by the World Health Organization (WHO) in the early 90's and then projected upon millions of women's bodies seemingly in order to convince them they had a drug-treatable, though symptomless, disease
Osteopenia (1992)[i] and Osteoporosis (1994)[ii] were formally identified as skeletal diseases by the World Health Organization (HTO) as bone mineral densities (BMD) 1 and 2.5 standard deviations, respectively, below the peak bone mass of an average young adult Caucasian female, as measured by an x-ray device known as Dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA, or DEXA). This technical definition, now used widely around the world as the gold standard, is disturbingly inept, and as we shall see, likely conceals an agenda that has nothing to do with the promotion of health.
To conduct the study, the researchers examined more than 23 million birth records, reported from 1990 to 2013, to the National Vital Statistics System. They looked at birthweight, as well as method of delivery and number of weeks into pregnancy at delivery. Senior study author, Ryan Masters, explained, "Our data indicate that there has been a dramatic shift in birth timing in this country. It is resulting in birthweight decline, and it is almost entirely due to changes in obstetric practices."
Using the data they had, the researchers attempted to predict what may have have changed if induction and cesarean rates had not increased between 1990 and 2013. Lead study author, Andrea Tilstra, explained, "We found that the decline in birthweight would not have happened if it were not for the rapid increase in these obstetric interventions. In fact, birthweights would have gone up."
Specific fibers known as prebiotics can improve sleep and boost stress resilience by influencing gut bacteria and the potent biologically active molecules, or metabolites, they produce, new CU Boulder research shows.
The research could ultimately lead to new approaches to treating sleep problems, which affect 70 million Americans.
"The biggest takeaway here is that this type of fiber is not just there to bulk up the stool and pass through the digestive system," said Robert Thompson, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Integrative Physiology and lead author of the study, published March 2, in the journal Scientific Reports. "It is feeding the bugs that live in our gut and creating a symbiotic relationship with us that has powerful effects on our brain and behavior."
Comment: See also:
- Study shows gum arabic, or acacia fiber, boosts prebiotic activity
- Improve sleep and reduce stress with pre-biotics
- The curious bidirectional link between gut health and sleep
- The importance of melatonin for optimal health
- Even low light before bed can disrupt sleep-hormone cycles
We must be able to trust the integrity of scientific research as we work to protect our families and our planet
Not again. News out of Europe last week revealed that more than 20 scientific studies submitted to regulators to prove the safety of the popular weedkilling chemical glyphosate came from a large German laboratory that has been accused of fraud and other wrongdoing.
The findings come amid global debate over whether or not glyphosate causes cancer and other health problems and if regulators and chemical companies proclaiming the chemical's safety actually have credible science on their side.
© Photograph: Jean-François Monier/AFP via Getty Images
Hundreds of studies done by US contract laboratories in the 1970s, 80s and 90s were found to be fraudulent, including some tests used by Monsanto.
Hundreds of studies done by US contract laboratories in the 1970s, 80s and 90s were found to be fraudulent, including some tests used by Monsanto.
The findings come amid global debate over whether or not glyphosate causes cancer and other health problems and if regulators and chemical companies proclaiming the chemical's safety actually have credible science on their side.
Comment: Read more from Carey Gillam:
- Who is paying for Monsanto's crimes?
- One man's suffering exposed Monsanto's secrets to the world
- How Monsanto manipulates journalists and academics
- Carey Gillam: I'm a journalist. Monsanto built a step-by-step strategy to destroy my reputation
- Epic Fail: The EPA is meant to protect us - the Monsanto trials suggest it isn't doing that
A study using neuroimaging led by Stony Brook University professor and lead author Lilianne R. Mujica-Parodi, PhD, and published in PNAS, reveals that neurobiological changes associated with aging can be seen at a much younger age than would be expected, in the late 40s. But the study also suggests that this process may be prevented or reversed based on dietary changes that involve minimizing the consumption of simple carbohydrates.
Even in younger adults, under age 50, dietary ketosis (whether achieved after one week of dietary change or 30 minutes after drinking ketones) increased overall brain activity and stabilized functional networks.
Comment: This is the type of research we need more of. Rather than just presuming there to be dangers in low carb diets or doing pseudostudies that call full carbohydrate diets 'low carb', these researchers are legitimately testing the diet in a controlled setting to find out the actual truth of the matter. Bravo.
See also:
- The Ketogenic diet: What are the effects of Ketosis on the brain?
- Running on ketones: The cognitive benefits of a fat-burning brain
- What's a ketogenic diet, and can it really boost brain health?
- Baby born with brain tumors had 20 seizures daily until ketogenic diet helped
- Low-carb ketogenic diet can combat brain cancer, says scientist Adrienne Scheck
- Woman with brain cancer uses high fat, low carb ketogenic diet to battle deadly ailment
- Your brain on ketones
- Calorie-restricted Ketogenic Diet Effective Alternative Therapy for Malignant Brain Cancer
Comment: Today's 'coronavirus pandemic' is recent history repeating. The following report came out as hysteria surrounding the 2009 'Swine Flu Pandemic' began to taper off...
Have YOU had your shot today?!
In fact, you probably didn't have flu at all. That's according to state-by-state test results obtained in a three-month-long CBS News investigation.
The ramifications of this finding are important. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Britain's National Health Service, once you have H1N1 flu, you're immune from future outbreaks of the same virus. Those who think they've had H1N1 flu -- but haven't -- might mistakenly presume they're immune. As a result, they might skip taking a vaccine that could help them, and expose themselves to others with H1N1 flu under the mistaken belief they won't catch it. Parents might not keep sick children home from school, mistakenly believing they've already had H1N1 flu.
Comment: Of course they didn't; they never do. It's all one-way propaganda from the top down.
'Positive' for H1N1, 'probable' for H1N1, 'negative for H1N1'... the WHO and CDC didn't care what actual medical testing took place and how accurate those results were. They just wanted to boost as many vaccines as possible and - more generally - get everyone onboard with 'doing what the nice man in the white coat - sponsored by Big Pharma - tells you'.
It's all about the vaccines - and/or other medical mafia means of implementing ever finer orders of control.
Like we said earlier in this current 'pandemic', the manufactured 'War on Terror' has nothing on manufactured 'global pandemics' when it comes to 'spooking the herd' and 'creating new facts on the ground'.
Most just 'freeze' in terror, suspend their critical faculties, and hand over more of their sovereignty to the authorities.
Comment: The Australia-first study: Alcohol causes most overall harm of any drug