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Tue, 02 Nov 2021
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'Nudges' hardly help: The reason there's so much unhealthy eating isn't undisciplined individuals - it's the existence of junk food

Junk food
© Lucy Nicholson / Reuters
Can anyone be gently pushed toward a more secure retirement? Or a healthier diet? That's the hope of a growing number of policymakers, economists, and psychologists. They aim to "nudge" people into spending and eating less, while saving and exercising more. Sometimes the nudges are merely informational: A law may require restaurants to reveal the number of calories in items on their menu. Or they can be more direct: A firm might choose to default to enrolling employees in its 401(k) plan. Ordinarily, workers need to opt in to such a plan. But, nudged by a different default setting, they could be required to build retirement savings unless they opt out.

Behavioral economists, who are responsible for the theories that inspired nudging, are the ones most excited about its possibilities. Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein's book Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness has won numerous awards, and influenced both liberal and conservative politicians. Thaler and Sunstein are thrilled that many firms are defaulting employees into retirement-savings plans. They and their many followers are intent on bringing more nudges to areas such as corporate-wellness programs and food labeling.

Comment: How We Became a Society of Gluttonous Junk Food Addicts
While food companies can trot willing doctors, dietitians and nutritionists who claim that eating their brand of poison in moderation can be part of a balanced diet, the companies are like drug dealers who prey on junkies...

The entire food industry, perhaps best described as "eatertainment," has refined the science of taking the cheap commodities pumped out by agribusiness and processing them into foodstuffs that are downright addictive. But food is far more than mere fuel. It is marketed as a salve for our emotional and psychological ills, as a social activity, a cultural outlet and entertainment.



Smoking

E-cigarettes not shown to be a safer alternative to regular cigarettes

e-cigarette
Penn State College of Medicine researchers have found that electronic cigarettes produce highly-reactive free radicals -- molecules associated with cell damage and cancer -- and may pose a health risk comparable or worse than conventional cigarettes.

The use of e-cigarettes is on the rise but research into the effects of e-cigarettes lags behind their popularity. The number of teens and tweens using these products doubled between 2011 and 2012. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 20 percent of young adults have tried e-cigarettes, and current smokers and recent former smokers are most likely to have used them.

E-cigarettes deliver nicotine in water vapor instead of by burning tobacco. The battery-operated devices have been marketed as an alternative to traditional cigarettes. They look like the real thing. The end glows as you inhale. As you exhale, you puff out a cloud of what looks like smoke.

Comment: If you are the smoking type, it would be best to stick to organically grown and additive-free, roll-your-own tobacco to partake of the benefits.


Dollars

Big Pharma corruption: Mandatory Meningitis Vaccine Bill author, Kemp Hannon, caught taking $420k

vaccination
© Teddyy Kwok
State Senator Kemp Hannon, Chair of the New York Senate Health Committee, and author of the recently passed law that will require all seventh and twelfth graders in the state to get meningitis shots, has been caught with his hand in the pot, according to the New York Daily News: specifically, the pharma pot. And to no small sum, mind you. His investments in pharmaceutical and health companies is at $100,000, while it is also being alleged that he has received more than $400,000 from the same interest groups. Hannon's investments are a direct conflict of interest and he should be charged criminally. This is an act of using your position to influence and write laws for the sole result of personal gain.
Sen. Kemp Hannon (R-Nassau County) in 2014 invested in 14 companies that would fall under his committee's purview.

By comparison, Assembly Health Committee Chairman Richard Gottfried (D-Manhattan) did not report owning any stock in health-related companies. In addition to his investments, Hannon over the past four years also received more than $420,000 from pharmaceutical and other medical interests, records show.

Hannon's office had no comment. On the part of his 2014 state financial disclosure form dealing with investments, he wrote that sales and purchases were "at sole discretion of the broker."

Comment: Senator Hannon is not the first Senator to have direct conflicts of interests when it comes to passing bills that benefit Big Pharma. California Senator Richard Pan's political shenanigans and obvious conflicts of interest are well documented in the passing of controversial vaccination bill SB277 :
  • Undue influence: BigPharma made huge donations to California lawmakers voting on mandatory vaccines
The Sacramento Bee is reporting that State lawmakers behind bill SB277have ties to the makers of vaccines. Pharmaceutical companies and their trade groups gave current members of the Legislature more than $2 million. Nine of the top 20 recipients of these funds are either members of the Senate health committee, or leaders who could influence the outcome of the bill, as well as push it through to law.

One senator, in particular, is also a doctor, Richard Pan, who received more than $95,000 in campaign cash. He also just happens to be the man who wrote the bill.



Health

Medical deaths and the corruption of healthcare

doctors and medicine
© unknown
In the USA alone it has been estimated that at least 210,000 patients died from medical mistakes in a year making this the third leading cause of death while heart disease is the first and cancer comes second.

Can the above figure be used to expose the corruption in medicine?

The reason why it has taken so long to realise that something is not right and why so many still don't see that anything is going on can be explained like this:

On the whole, people: healthcare workers or patients or the public at large, can regard many circumstances in medicine as isolated cause and effect relationships. In other words, people generally fail to make the connections between the different cause and effect relationships.

Comment:


Attention

Bhopal Gas tragedy: Toxins still spreading through soil & water - 31 years later

Bhopal disaster
For 31 years, the horrors of that night have remained etched on Mohammad Habib's body and mind. In the early hours of December 3, 1984, poisonous methyl iso-cyanate gas leaked from the Union Carbide factory just a few hundred meters from his home at Kazi Camp in Bhopal.

An estimated 3000 people died in what is considered the world's worst industrial disaster. Mr Habib - now 52 - lost four members of his family members. Complex multiple surgeries may have helped him regain some strength, but the prolonged fight for justice and rehabilitation has slowly grown weak. "Nothing has happened. The gas victims are now dying so the fight has weakened. Some people and politicians raise the issue once a year and do nothing about it rest of the year," says Mr Habib.

Comment: Bhopal: Industrial, chemical violence
December 3, 2014, marks the 30th anniversary of the terrible Bhopal gas tragedy, which killed more than 3,000 people almost immediately, another 8,000 in the following days, and more than 20,000 in the last three decades.

Despite the tragedy of humongous proportions, the people of Bhopal are still fighting for justice despite the apathy they continue to face.

Bhopal was a watershed moment. The tragedy woke up the world to industrial, chemical violence. The chemicals being manufactured at the Bhopal plant had their roots in warfare.

Bhopal gas tragedy was a political, economic, legal watershed for India and the planet. It was a toxic tragedy at two levels the leakage of a toxic gas from a plant producing toxic pesticides, the continued presence of 350 metric tonnes of hazardous toxic waste from the now-defunct Union Carbide India Ltd's plant in Bhopal, combined with a toxic influence of corporations on courts and successive governments. Legally, Union Carbide and the US courts escaped liability and responsibility for the damage, setting a precedent of governments shrugging their duty to protect their citizens, taking away citizens' rights and sovereignty in order to make settlements with corporations, letting them off lightly.



Info

New research links health of mitochondria to our responses to stress

mitochondria
New research has linked mitochondria health to psychological health and the response to stress. This connection is crucial for understanding the origins of certain disease and turns mental health theories on their head!

The interesting new finding shows that it's not stress causing our problems necessarily - but the ability of our biology - i.e. mitochondira to function. Unfortunately, there were some pretty twisted animal studies in order to find this information. See a book recommendation at the bottom, for minding your mitochondria and reversing disease.

From Children's Hospital of Philadelphia press release:

Mitochondria affect stress responses CHOP scientist: Cell's powerhouse plays role in mind-body interactions, with long-term health effects

Mitochondria, the tiny structures inside our cells that generate energy, may also play a previously unrecognized role in mind-body interactions. Based on new studies of stress responses, this insight may have broad implications for human psychology and for the biology of psychiatric and neurological diseases.

Comment: Mitochondria are unique organelles contained in every cell of the human body, other than red blood cells, and they contain their own unique DNA. Mitochondria are involved in nearly every major metabolic process, and they help form 90% of the body's cellular energy in the form of ATP (adenosine triphosphate). Making lifestyle changes such as daily exercise, intermittent fasting and following a ketogenic diet can help to improve the health of your mitochondria.

For more information on improving mitochondrial function and your overall health, listen to SOTT's Health and Wellness Show: A conversation with Dr. Jack Kruse.


Bulb

Powerful Aspirin alternative that grows on trees

Asprin tree
Aspirin's long held promises are increasingly falling flat. A natural, safer and more effective alternative to this synthetic drug has been known about for at least 15 years!

In a previous article titled "The Evidence Against Aspirin and For Natural Alternatives," we discussed the clear and present danger linked with the use of aspirin as well as several clinically proven alternatives that feature significant side benefits as opposed to aspirin's many known side effects.

Since writing this article, even more evidence has accumulated indicating that aspirin's risks outweigh its benefits. Most notably, a 15-year Dutch study published in the journal Heart found that among 27,939 healthy female health professionals (average age 54) randomized to receive either 100 mg of aspirin every day or a placebo the risk of gastrointestinal bleeding outweighed the benefit of the intervention for colorectal cancer and cardiovascular disease prevention in those under 65 years of age.

Bullseye

Erin Brockovich: "I'm outraged! The Biotech Industry is jeopardizing our health"

Erin Brockovich
© Jamie Hanson—Newspix via Getty Images
American legal clerk and environmental activist, Erin Brockovich poses during a photo shoot at the Stamford Hotel in Brisbane, Australia, on February 17, 2015.
Consumers must demand labels on Genetically Modified Organism

The new movie Consumed tackles the controversial world of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) in unprecedented fashion, offering insight into their risks. Its message could not be more timely in the wake of the recent news that the Food and Drug Administration has approved the first genetically engineered salmon for human consumption.The fish, like all genetically engineered ingredients in this country, will not be labeled, leaving American consumers in the dark. Like many food and environmental safety activists around the world, I'm outraged.

The biotech industry and the FDA have hijacked not only our basic rights as consumers, but also our fundamental human rights in the face of corporate monopolization of our food supply. They are jeopardizing our health and the environment more than ever before. When will the government agencies put in place to protect us stop servicing the bottom line of corporations?

Comment: The fact that this article appeared on the Time.com website is interesting, it says a lot about the growing concern over the 'dangerous precedent set by the FDA's approval of the first genetically engineered animal'. While it is unrealistic to think that congressional representatives will do anything to address consumer concerns regarding the food we are eating in the U.S and our 'rights', it is important to note that 'voices are being heard' and the message is spreading:
"The market is rejecting GMO salmon. Stores won't sell it and people don't want to eat it," said Friends of the Earth Campaigner Dana Perls. "Now other retailers like Walmart and restaurants need to follow suit, and we need mandatory GMO labeling so that consumers know how to avoid GMO salmon."

More than 60 grocery store chains representing more than 9,000 stores across the U.S. have made commitments to not sell GMO salmon, including Safeway, Kroger, Target, Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, Aldi and many others.



Cell Phone

Mobile phone usage linked to male infertility

Infertility rates are higher than ever, as is usage of cell phones. Yet, in the scientific literature, it is widely accepted and unanimously agreed on that electromagnetic radiation from mobile phones harms male sperm in many different ways.
cell phone user
We are probably living in the prime time of cellular phones; it's practically impossible to find a person without (at least) one. Surely, mobile phone manufacturers couldn't be happier! One thing is certain: the vast majority of the population in the world keep near their body, for the greatest part of the day and/or night, a device that constantly emits radiofrequency electromagneticfields (RF-EMF) at 900 MHz, to which we are inevitably (and perhaps without our consent/knowledge) exposed to. While many of us carry the phone in a purse or bag, others, especially men, carry their phone in their trousers pockets, which is really close to the reproductive organs and glands. The obvious question is "Is this healthy?" With infertility rates reaching record highs, this simple question is worth investigating.

Comment: Protect yourself. Severely limit or discontinue cell phone use.


SOTT Logo Radio

The Health & Wellness Show: The Radiation Situation

Sott Talk Radio logo
Today on the Health and Wellness show we dive into the dark world of radiation. We'll talk about the history of nuclear testing, nuclear accidents, nuclear power, radiation in the environment, what it can do, and what you can do to protect yourself.

While this topic can be hard to discuss, we encourage you to join us for this episode while we face the facts head-on. We'll also discuss how to deal with depressing information while keeping your head on straight. Knowledge is power!

As always, Zoya will share the Pet Health Segment. Make sure to tune into the Health and Wellness show every Friday at 10am EST.

Running Time: 02:04:00

Download: MP3