Bread lovers beware! Gluten-free diets may not just be a trendy choice but something everyone should follow. New research reveals that proteins in wheat may be detrimental to all humans.

"Gluten-free" seems to be appearing just about everywhere these days, from restaurant menus to grocery store shelves and even on cosmetics labels. And with good reason. The gluten-free market is exploding. Packaged Facts, a market research company estimated that the gluten-free market in the United States was $4.2 billion last year and predicts an expansion to $6.6 billion by 2017.

In a recent Time Magazine article entitled: "Why We're Wasting Billions on Gluten-Free Foods," business writer Martha C. White puzzled over this seemingly baseless trend, stating: "As food fads go, though, this one's not only enormous: It's enormously expensive - and many of us paying a premium to avoid gluten are doing so without any legitimate medical reason."

Jordans cereal bars and Warburtons bread have been found to contain traces of glyphosate - a controversial herbicide that campaigners say poses a risk to human health. Andrew Wasley reports ...

They are the proud sponsors of Channel 4's River Cottage series and widely recognised for their commitment to the environment, promoting 'conservation grade' farming where growers must dedicate portions of their land to benefit wildlife.

But Jordans - the leading manufacturer of breakfast cereals and cereal snack bars - is reviewing its farming methods after some of its products were found to contain residues of a controversial herbicide that campaigners say is potentially harmful to human health.

The company has pledged to review its use of glyphosate, a powerful weedkiller, after a pressure group analysed the results of tests carried out by the Government's official Pesticides Residues Monitoring Programme on bread, bakery products, cereal bars and other foodstuffs.

"We believe that BPA actually reprograms the stem cells to be more sensitive to estrogen throughout life, leading to a life-long increased susceptibility to diseases including cancer." - Professor Gail Prins University of Chicago.

Fetal exposure to a commonly used plasticizer found in products such as water bottles, soup can liners and paper receipts, can increase the risk for prostate cancer later in life, according to a study from the University of Illinois at Chicago published Jan. 7 online in the journal Endocrinology.

Bisphenol A, or BPA, is widely used to soften plastics. Steering clear of the chemical is nearly impossible, says Gail Prins, professor of physiology at UIC and lead author of the paper.

A campaign group has been formed to reduce the amount of sugar added to food and soft drinks in an effort to tackle obesity and diabetes in the UK.

Action on Sugar has been set up by the team behind Consensus Action on Salt and Health (Cash), which has pushed for cuts to salt intake since the 1990s.


The new group aims to help people avoid "hidden sugars" and get manufacturers to reduce the ingredient over time.

It believes a 20% to 30% reduction in three to five years is within reach.

Like Cash, Action on Sugar will set targets for the food industry to add less sugar bit by bit so that consumers do not notice the difference in taste.

As many of you are now aware, U.S. News and World Reports (USNWR) has just issued their annual ratings of Best Diets for 2014. As per their 2011, 2012 and 2013 evaluations, the DASH diet was rated number one by a panel of nutritional and health "experts," and The Paleo Diet again emerged last out of 32 diets which were considered. We have previously addressed the USNWR report as it relates to the Paleo Diet in extensive detail in the Original Rebuttal to the USNWR. I have a few additional important points which follow:

I would like to point out a number of crucial flaws in logic along with a total breakdown of the scientific method in these types of artificial, media-generated reports that invalidate any wide sweeping conclusions about diet reached by the popular press, by individual member of the USNWR panel or by USNWR itself.

The 2014 USNWR diet ratings represent nothing more than the subjective rankings of 32 popular diets by a group of professionals, ultimately hand-picked by the editorial infrastructure at USNWR. Notably lacking in the makeup of this panel are academic and medical professionals with a background and publication record in human evolution, ancestral human diets and the application of this diet within a clinical setting.

The USNWR ratings represent a purely subjective appraisal of 32 popular diets and accordingly has little or no objective value from a scientific perspective because of numerous and glaring flaws in the research design of this report. Let me give you an example.

Canadian health officials have confirmed the first known fatal case of the H5N1 avian influenza strain in North America. Canadian Health Minister Rona Ambrose said the deceased person was an Alberta resident who had recently travelled to Beijing.

Calling the death an "isolated case", Ms Ambrose said the risk to the general population was low.
Ten people have died in Alberta this season from swine flu, or H1N1.

H5N1 infects the lower respiratory tract deep in the lung, where it can cause deadly pneumonia.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) says it is difficult to transmit the virus from person to person but when people do become infected, the mortality rate is about 60%.

In the latest incident, the infected person first showed symptoms of the flu on an Air Canada flight from Beijing to Vancouver on 27 December, officials said.

The passenger continued on to Edmonton and on 1 January was admitted to hospital where they died two days later. Canadian federal health officials said they would not identify the patient's sex, age or occupation.

Ms Ambrose said Canadian officials were working with Chinese authorities on the case. "The risk of getting H5N1 is very low. This is not the regular seasonal flu. This is an isolated case," she said.

According to an old South American proverb, "good broth will resurrect the dead." While that's undoubtedly an exaggeration, it speaks to the value placed on this wholesome food, going back through the annals of time.

The featured article by Dr. Amy Myers¹ lists 10 health benefits of bone broth. Sally Fallon with the Weston A. Price Foundation² has previously published information about this healing food as well.

First and foremost, homemade bone broth is excellent for speeding healing and recuperation from illness. You've undoubtedly heard the old adage that chicken soup will help cure a cold, and there's scientific support for such a statement.

For starters, chicken contains a natural amino acid called cysteine, which can thin the mucus in your lungs and make it less sticky so you can expel it more easily. Processed, canned soups will not work as well as the homemade version made from slow-cooked bone broth.

For best results, you really need to make up a fresh batch yourself (or ask a friend or family member to do so). If combating a cold, make the soup hot and spicy with plenty of pepper. The spices will trigger a sudden release of watery fluids in your mouth, throat, and lungs, which will help thin down the respiratory mucus so it's easier to expel.

But the benefits of broth don't end there. As explained by Sally Fallon:³

"Stock contains minerals in a form the body can absorb easily - not just calcium but also magnesium, phosphorus, silicon, sulfur and trace minerals. It contains the broken down material from cartilage and tendons--stuff like chondroitin sulphates and glucosamine, now sold as expensive supplements for arthritis and joint pain."

According to a press release recently posted by the University of Washington, a new type of vaccine may soon be created that will allow for its immediate creation and application. This new vaccine, however, will be formed by using nanoparticles created from genetically engineered proteins.

The researchers, who have already tested the vaccine in mice, are hopeful that the vaccines will soon make "on-demand" vaccines that can be administered within minutes for a low price a common reality in the medical community.

The vaccine would mostly be aimed at "developing countries" and would cut the costs of vaccination programs "by not having to rely on refrigeration, and vaccines could be produced with rudimentary equipment in more precise, targeted numbers. The vaccines could be manufactured and delivered using a disposable patch, like a bandage, which could one day lessen the use of trained personnel and hypodermic needles."

Even when a medication works, half of its impact on a patient may be due to one aspect of the placebo effect: the positive message that a doctor provides when prescribing the treatment, according to a new study.

Researchers designed an elaborate study, in which 66 people suffering from migraine headaches were given either a placebo, or a common migraine drug called Maxalt. However, for each migraine attack the participants had during the study period, they were told something different. For example, they were told they were taking a placebo when they were actually taking Maxalt, or vice versa, and sometimes they were told the pill could be either Maxalt or a placebo.

The pain-relieving benefits of the migraine drug increased when patients were told they were taking an effective drug for the treatment of acute migraine. And when the identities of Maxalt tablets and placebo pills were switched, patients reported similar pain relief from placebo pills labeled as Maxalt as from Maxalt tablets labeled as a placebo, according to the study published today (Jan. 8) in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

The results suggest that the information people have is as important as the effects of the drug in reducing pain, the researchers said.

"In many conditions, placebo effect is a big part of the effect of the drug," said study researcher, Ted Kaptchuk, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. In the new study, 50 percent of the drug's effect could be attributed to the placebo effect, he said

"Themore you give a positive message, the more a drug works. In this case, our message was just as important as the pharmacology of the drug," Kaptchuk said.

The Food and Drug Administration has issued an important warning about one of the most popular antibiotics.

As CBS 2's Dr. Max Gomez reported, azithromycin - known by the brand names Zithromax and Z-Pak - could cause fatal heart problems.

More than 40 million prescriptions a year are written for azithromycin, for everything from bronchitis to urinary tract and skin infections. But like all drugs, azithromycin has its side effects.

The FDA said one rare side effect could be lethal. It could cause an irregular heart rhythm that in some patients has caused sudden cardiac death.

"What the macrolide antibiotics like Zithromax might do is change the electric conduction of the heart," said Dr. Susanne Steinbaum of Lenox Hill Hospital. "And what those changes might cause is an abnormality in the heart rhythm that can actually lead to sudden cardiac death."