Welcome to Sott.net
Thu, 04 Nov 2021
The World for People who Think

Health & Wellness
Map

Pills

Another reason to avoid statin drugs: Muscle wasting that may lead to Lou Gehrig's disease

Dr. Mercola
Mercola.com
Wed, 27 Jul 2016 00:00 UTC
statin drugs
Tens of millions of people are taking drugs to lower their cholesterol levels. Most of those medications are in a drug class known as statins. Some doctors are even starting to recommend children use statin drugs to control their cholesterol levels.1 I couldn't disagree more.

The challenge with statin drugs is that they address surface issues with cholesterol in a simplistic manner. But your body is a complex organism that uses cholesterol every day to build new cell walls, in the formation of vitamin D and in the production of hormones.

Statin drugs are HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors. They function by blocking the enzyme in your liver that naturally produces cholesterol for your bodily functions.

The drug essentially reduces your total cholesterol number, without addressing your high-density lipoproteins (HDL), low-density lipoproteins (LDL), very low-density lipoproteins (VLDL) or triglyceride levels.

While your total cholesterol number gives you a general overview, it isn't the information needed to evaluate your risk of cardiovascular disease. Instead, you'll need to compare your HDL, LDL, VLDL and triglyceride numbers against your total cholesterol.

Statins May Trigger Neuromuscular Disease

Statin drugs are notorious for causing side effects like muscle damage and weakness. What has been less publicized is a potential link between statins and a progression of muscle wasting that may lead to a diagnosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease.

The World Health Organization (WHO) Foundation Collaborating Centre for International Drug Monitoring receives safety reports associated with statin medications and has noted a disproportionately high number of patients with upper motor neuron lesions among those taking statin medications.2

Comment: Read more about the numerous and dangerous side effects of statins which have been called a medical tragedy:

      Read More...
Info

CDC Official Dr. Barbara Bowman steps down after Coca-Cola ILSI scandal comes to light

Brandon Turbeville
Natural Blaze
Wed, 27 Jul 2016 15:03 UTC
coke
Two days after it was revealed that a veteran leader within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was assisting Coca-Cola and International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI) in influencing world health authorities on issues related to sugar and beverage policy, Dr. Barbara Bowman has now stepped down from her position.

Dr. Barbara Bowman, the disgraced former director of the CDC's division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention began working with the CDC in 1992 and has since been involved with a number of different initiatives within that division which is charged with providing "public health leadership."

Bowman's exit from the CDC comes after a number of her emails were revealed as having provided guidance to Alex Malaspina, former top Coca-Cola executive and strategist. Indeed, Malaspina, along with Coca-Cola helped found ILSI. The emails were revealed by virtue of a Freedom of Information Act request filed by U.S. Right to Know.

Comment: The International Life Sciences Institute is not the first 'health organization' leasing out integrity to Coca Cola:

Will big food control nutrition "Science?"
This week saw the release of another report, this time exposing the ties between the American Society of Nutrition (ASN)—whose membership includes some of the nation's leading nutrition scientists and researchers—and junk food giants like Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Nestlé, Monsanto, McDonald's, and Mars.
Among the report's findings:
  • Of the thirty-four scientific sessions at ASN's annual meeting, six were financially supported by PepsiCo.
  • The International Life Sciences Institute (a front group for Big Food and Big Pharma) sponsored a session on low-calorie sweeteners. Speakers included a scientific consultant for Ajinomoto, which produces aspartame.
  • The Grocery Manufacturers Association, a lobbying group for the food and beverage industries, sponsored a symposium on sodium intake, which referred to "putative health concerns."
  • For $35,000, junk food companies can sponsor a hospitality suite at the annual meeting, where corporate executives socialize with nutrition researchers.
  • Official spokespeople for ASN reportedly have ties to Coca-Cola, McDonald's, the American Beverage Association, General Mills, and Cadbury Schweppes.
  • ASN published an eighteen-page defense of processed food that appears to consist of numerous talking points for the junk food industry, such as this one: "There are no differences between the processing of foods at home or at a factory." Parents who work hard to make meals from scratch for their children deserve better than this.
  • ASN opposes an FDA-proposed policy to include added sugars on the Nutrition Facts panel, at a time when excessive sugar consumption is causing a national public health epidemic.


      Read More...
Cheeseburger

The Standard American Diet may be shrinking people

Eric Niiler
Seeker.com
Mon, 25 Jul 2016 14:38 UTC
short tall
© ThinkStock
Americans kids' junk food diet is making them shorter as adults compared to the rest of the world. That's one finding from a massive new study of nearly 19 million people across the world.

On the eve of World War I, American men were third tallest on the planet. By 2014, they dropped to 37th, while U.S. women have slipped from 4th tallest to 42nd. While the average American grew throughout much of the century, that growth leveled off between 1974 and 1994, according to researchers from Imperial College London who presented their work at the EuroScience Open Forum (ESOF2016) in Manchester and published in the journal eLife.

The main reason that we haven't kept up with adults of Netherlands, Belgium, Latvia and Estonia (ranked first through fourth) is that American children are eating too much crappy food, according to Majid Ezzati, professor of medicine at Imperial College. "There was a time that America was the land of plenty, but increasingly nutrition has become worse there," Ezzati said. "It has become a lot more unequal. Obesity in children has gone up."

In fact, childhood obesity among U.S. children has doubled in the past 30 years, and in 2012, more than one of three children and adolescents were either overweight or obese, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Pregnant women aren't getting proper nutrition either, said Elio Riboli, director of the school of public health at Imperial College, while kids don't eat enough milk or meat during early childhood through adolescence.

Other high-income countries that have leveled off include the United Kingdom, Finland and Japan. In comparison, Spain, Italy and many Latin American and East Asian nations are continuing to grow taller over time. The researchers analyzed data from nearly 19 million people living in 200 countries.
      Read More...
Monkey Wrench

More mad science: GMO tomatoes tweaked to stay firm longer

Daniela Hernandez
The Wall Street Journal
Tue, 26 Jul 2016 21:09 UTC
GMO tweaked tomatoes
The genetic tweaks don't significantly affect color and may preserve flavor, according to a new study

In an attempt to produce plump, tasty tomatoes with longer shelf lives, scientists have successfully tweaked a gene that slows how quickly the fruits soften without affecting their size or color.

The genetically modified tomatoes, described in a paper published Monday in the journal Nature Biotechnology, didn't show telltale signs of softening, like pruned skin, 14 days after harvesting, compared with wrinkled ones from normal plants. To engineer them, the researchers turned to two DNA-altering techniques, including CRISPR-Cas 9, an editing tool used to snip out and replace unwanted genes.

The number of tomatoes growing on genetically modified and normal plants was roughly the same. Plus, the modified plants and normal controls had similar amounts of molecules known to affect taste, color, and smell, according to the study.

Comment: Read more about the frightening implications of 'gene editing'
The US Food and Drug Administration approved the nation's first genetically modified animal in 2015 - GMO salmon - and scientists can't wait to add more to the batch. Head of development biology at the University of Edinburgh's Roslin Institute, Professor Bruce Whitelaw has produced swine fever-resistant pigs through a new gene-editing technique. Yeah, he wants to see them also approved by the FDA. [1]

Whitelaw says that much more work is required to refine what he calls a 'precise' process.
"It's a swap of sequence. It's a .00000001 percent change, which is a tiny portion," he adds. "The technology has allowed us to add in and create very precise breeding."
Though these are the claims of many in the biotech industry, gene-editing and other 'cutting-edge' genetic modification techniques don't always work out as they plan. With GM plants bred to resist pests in the field, the industry inadvertently (some argue purposefully) created super bugs, requiring more and more toxic chemicals to be sprayed.

When you consider how long our genes have developed under natural conditions, scientists are really amateurs, hacking away at the genome. Then there are the ethical considerations. One researcher has even proposed modifying the elephant genome to produce a cold-adapted replica of the long-extinct woolly mammoth. [2]


      Read More...
Attention

Mandated vaccines will be a toxic reality of a Killary Clinton administration

Tami Canal
March Against Monsanto
Mon, 25 Jul 2016 21:24 UTC
Clinton vaccines
If Hillary Clinton is elected president of the United States, there will be a national mandatory vaccine program.

It is painfully evident with her selection for vice president and the mention of some nefarious players in the mandated vaccine battle that the former secretary likely intends to appoint to her cabinet.

For starters, the potential future vice president Tim Kaine is a huge shill for the pharmaceutical industry. He has collected tens of thousands of dollars in "campaign contributions" and signed heinous laws in favor of his Big Pharma friends - like that one time he signed a law mandating the HPV vaccine for 6th grade girls in Virginia.

I wonder if the Virginia HPV mandate had anything to do with Kaine's buddies at Merck and the announcement to "invest $57 million to expand the role its Elkton facility plays in producing Gardasil, Merck's cervical cancer vaccine." (Source)
"It's critical that Merck has sufficient production capacity to meet growing worldwide demand for its medicines and vaccines," said Dr. Charles Vencill, plant manager. "We appreciate the ongoing support of the Kaine administration and local officials to make this additional expansion possible."



Comment: Hillary's running mate,Tim Kaine forced 6th grade girls to get Gardasil vaccine


In other alarming news this week, Hillary made mention of her desire to work specifically with Rep. Frederika Wilson. This is terribly concerning considering this is the very woman who introduced the national version of California's SB277. Mandated vaccines for all!
"The health and safety of children must be our top priority. Children who are not vaccinated put themselves and others in danger of acquiring and spreading preventable diseases. That is why I introduced the Vaccinate All Children Act because requiring vaccinations for students will save lives and protect future generations," said Congresswoman Wilson.
People need to realize that laws are being implemented in states all over this country that will deny our kids the right to attend a daycare or a public school unless they are current on the CDC's vaccine schedule.

Comment: Read more about Vaccines: Science in the Authoritarian state: Remember! The Pharmaceutical industry is one of the largest sponsors of the dying mainstream media, and since they also have more lobbyists than any other industry influencing U.S. government policy, they continue to grow their market.

      Read More...
Bulb

Study: Computer-based Brain training can reduce dementia by half


PsyBlog
Tue, 26 Jul 2016 00:00 UTC
Hyper active brain
© Shutterstock
Until now brain training has proved more of a fad than a useful a treatment.

Computer-based brain training can halve the incidence of dementia, a surprising new study finds.

So far brain training has proved more of a fad than a useful a treatment.

But now research carried out over 10 years has found that a relatively small amount of brain training reduced older people's chances of developing dementia dramatically.

For the study, healthy older adults did 10 brain training sessions of just over an hour.
      Read More...
Hearts

We always carry our children in our hearts: Mother & child are linked at the cellular level

Laura Grace Weldon
lauragraceweldon.com
Sun, 12 Jun 2016 16:50 UTC
mother and child
© shortgreenpigg.deviantart.com
Fetal cells remain to heal a mother throughout her life.

Today is my youngest child's birthday. As my mother used to tell me, we always carry our children in our hearts. I know this is true emotionally. Apparently it's also true on the physical level.

Sometimes science is filled with transcendent meaning more beautiful than any poem. To me, this new research shows the poetry packed in the people all around us.

It's now known that cells from a developing fetus cross the placenta, allowing the baby's DNA to become part of the mother's body. These fetal cells persist in a woman's body into her old age. (If she has been pregnant with a male child it's likely she'll have some Y-chromosomes drifting around for a few decades too). This is true even if the baby she carried didn't live to be born. The cells of that child stay with her, resonating in ways that mothers have known intuitively throughout time.

Comment: Baby Gives Back: The Fetus Is Capable of Saving Mom's Life
This astounding discovery indicates that fetal stem cells are capable of differentiating into a variety of heart cell types, including "beating cardiomyocytes," and which may heal the mother's physical heart.

It appears that Nature made it possible for the unborn offspring of mammals to save their mother's lives by contributing stem cells which are capable of grafting into tissues, including bone marrow, potentially providing a lifelong source of new healthy cells to replace damaged or dysfunctional ones.


      Read More...
Info

How the immune system controls social behavior

Julie Beck
The Atlantic
Mon, 25 Jul 2016 21:13 UTC
immune system social behavior
Researchers have found a new mechanism that could explain the link between social dysfunction and immune dysfunction.

More and more, we are discovering that the mind and the body are not separate. The brain is not just an ivory tower that sends orders from on high to a body that just does what it's told. The body talks to the brain, too. Indeed, a group of scientists recently discovered a two-way connection between the brain and the immune system, one that could have far-reaching implications.

For the longest time, scientists thought that the brain was totally separate from the body's immune system—recent work has shown that's not so. In the membranes that cover the brain and spinal cord, there are lymphatic vessels that can drain fluid and immune cells from the cerebrospinal fluid into the deep cervical lymph nodes, which are located in the neck. Researchers identified these vessels first in mice, then found a "potentially similar structure" in humans.

Comment: The brain has its own immune system

      Read More...
Attention

Europe's first Zika-caused microcephaly baby born in Spain is first known case in Europe to go to term


RT
Mon, 25 Jul 2016 20:04 UTC
Zika virus
© Paulo Whitaker / Reuters
Therapist Rozely Fontoura holds Juan Pedro, who has microcephaly, in Recife, Brazil.
Europe's first baby with the microcephaly birth defect caused by Zika has been born in Catalonia. The mother had been diagnosed with the virus in May after travelling to South America.

Physician Felix Castillo said the baby was born with a small head circumference typical of Zika and that it was "stable and has not required any specific resuscitation," according to The Local.

The child was delivered via caesarean section at Vall D'Hebron hospital in Barcelona - the first known case in Europe to go to term.

The mother is reported to have contracted Zika while in Latin America.

Comment: See also: Zika virus mystery: New Utah case stumps researchers

      Read More...
Syringe

Alarming increase in seizure disorders among children - are vaccines to blame?


Vactruth
Mon, 25 Jul 2016 18:55 UTC
vaccines & epilepsy
© flickr.com
The rates of seizure disorders in children have skyrocketed in recent years, with one in 20 children under the age of five now suffering from epilepsy. Many parents know vaccines are to blame, as their children suffered seizures shortly after vaccination. Government officials say it's mere coincidence. [1]

Epilepsy is the formal medical diagnosis given to patients who suffer multiple seizures.

According to the Epilepsy Foundation, at least 326,000 children in the United States have been diagnosed with epilepsy, with an additional 200,000 cases diagnosed each year. [2]

Facts About Epilepsy

Epilepsy is a condition in which seizures occur on a repeated basis, at least "two or more unprovoked seizures," according to Johns Hopkins University. [3]

According to Sarah Shalev, MD, an epilepsy fellow at the University of California, San Francisco, "a seizure occurs when too many nerve cells in the brain 'fire' too quickly, causing an 'electrical storm.'" [4]

In the United States, about one in 100 adults live with epilepsy, and one in 20 children under the age of five are believed to have the disorder.
      Read More...
Amazon Smile
Revolt! T-shirts