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Depression risk for workers starved of natural light

Ben Farmer
Telegraph, UK
Fri, 03 Jan 2014 13:45 UTC
A charity warns that the lack of natural light is affecting workers' mental health

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© ALAMY
The lack of sunlight means people are at risk of developing seasonal affective (SAD), or winter depression
One in ten people see no natural light at work, while 30 per cent get up before sunrise and return home after sunset during the winter months, a survey has found.

The lack of sunlight means people are at risk of developing seasonal affective (SAD), or winter depression, a mental health charity warned.

Going without daily sunlight can lead to feelings of lethargy and depression, which can develop further into SAD, Mental Health Research UK (MHRUK) said.

The charity's survey of 2,000 British adults found that three in 10 adults rise before sunrise during the winter months and return home from work after sunset.

It also found half were concerned that their workplace lacked natural light and ten per cent said they had no natural light whatsoever at all while at work.
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Johnson & Johnson Risperdal linked to male breast development

Greg Jones Law
Digital Journal
Sat, 04 Jan 2014 07:12 UTC
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Johnson & Johnson, the pharmaceutical giant known worldwide as a maker of a variety of popular pharmaceutical products, has come under media scrutiny once again for manufacturing potential defective drugs. This time, however, the scrutiny surrounds the side effects associated with the manufacturing of a particular antipsychotic known as Risperdal. Specifically, the drug has been linked to causing Gynecomastia in males.

Prescription Risperdal

Risperdal is a drug prescribed for the treatment of mental disorders like bipolar, schizophrenia and autism. The FDA approved the drug for consumer use in the early 90s. Typical side effects of the medication include diabetes, weight gain, nausea, bone loss, and bowel discomfort, among others. However, many male patients have also reported experiencing Gynecomastia after taking the medication.
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Gingerbread

General Mills marketing ploy! Cheerios now made without GM ingredients


Reuters
Fri, 03 Jan 2014 05:19 UTC
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© Reuters/Jim Young
The General Mills logo is seen on a box of Cheerios cereal in Evanston, Illinois, June 26, 2012.
General Mills Inc said it has stopped using genetically modified ingredients in the popular breakfast cereal Cheerios as the U.S. branded foods manufacturer hopes the move will firm up customer loyalty in the face of growing opposition to such additives.

Many activists and critics have cited studies showing that genetically modified (GM) crops are not safe for people and animals who consume them.

Some activist groups opposing GM food also say the crops create environmental problems by encouraging more use of certain agro chemicals, and consumers should have the right to know what they are buying.

However, General Mills, which also makes Betty Crocker dessert mixes and Yoplait yoghurt, said in a company blog post on Thursday that its decision on ingredients was not driven by safety concerns or pressure from critics.

"It's not about safety. Biotech seeds, also known as genetically modified seeds, have been approved by global food safety agencies and widely used by farmers in global food crops for almost 20 years," the General Mills blog said.

Comment: This is a pure marketing ploy. General Mills has no interest in the health and well-being of consumers but is responding to the worldwide disdain for genetically modified foods.
France Bans GMO Corn Amid Mass US Protests Against Monsanto
Peru bans genetically modified foods for ten years minimum
Opposition crops up to GMO foods in Hawaii
'Stop GMOs': Russian scientists urge 10-year ban on genetically modified products
GMO Scandal: The Long Term Effects of Genetically Modified Food in Humans

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Drug companies accused of holding back complete information on clinical trials

Rajeev Syal
The Guardian, UK
Fri, 03 Jan 2014 17:22 UTC
Tamiflu
© The Guardian, UK

Clinical trial results are being routinely withheld from doctors, undermining their ability to make informed decisions about how to treat patients, an influential parliamentary committee has claimed.

MPs have expressed "extreme concern" that drug manufacturers appear to only publish around 50% of completed trial results and warned that the practice has "ramifications for the whole of medicine".

Their conclusions have emerged in a public accounts committee report which examined the Department of Health's decision to spend £424m on stockpiling the flu drug Tamiflu, before writing off £74m because of poor record keeping.

The MPs found that experts failed to agree on how well Tamiflu works, but discussions were hampered because important information was held back.

Richard Bacon, a senior member of the committee, said the practice of holding back results was undermining the ability of doctors, researchers and patients to make informed decisions about treatments. "Regulators and the industry have made proposals to open up access, but these do not cover the issue of access to the results of trials in the past which bear on the efficacy and safety of medicines in use today," he said. "Research suggests that the probability of completed trials being published is roughly 50%. And trials which gave a favourable verdict are about twice as likely to be published as trials giving unfavourable results.
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Life Preserver

'Primal Body' transforms metabolism with gluten-free high fat ketogenic diet

Joanne Eglash
Examiner
Fri, 03 Jan 2014 14:32 UTC
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You've probably heard about the Paleo diet. But health researcher Nora Gedgaudas believes that this approach can be improved by following what she calls the "Primal Body" plan. In an exclusive interview on Jan. 3, Nora explained to me how her guidelines can transform your metabolism and result in weight loss.

Nora chose the term "Primal" to reflect the fact that "we share common DNA with the earliest organisms on this planet." She notes that it expands the meaning of Paleo to focus on our body's need for unprocessed foods that are carefully chosen. Nora has authored a book expanding on this concept: "Primal Body, Primal Mind: Beyond the Paleo Diet for Total Health and a Longer Life" (click for details).

A key part of her Primal plan: Going gluten-free.

"According to extremely knowledgeable research scientists such as Dr. Alexio Fasano, gluten is a substance no human being can actually even digest," says Nora.

And with the wide range of adverse effects of gluten consumption (more than 200), gluten should not be considered a food, she contends. Instead, Nora believes that it is "a bona fide contaminant."

Comment: For more information on this research and how to do this diet, see

The Ketogenic Diet - An Overview
Is the Ketogenic Diet the cure for multiple diseases?
Ketogenic diet plan
Low-carb, high-fat ketogenic diet fuels rapid weight loss
Opening Pandora's Bread Box: The Critical Role of Wheat Lectin in Human Disease

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Pills

Make a new year's resolution to give up psychiatry

Brian Daniels
The Bristol Post
Thu, 02 Jan 2014 11:00 UTC
adhd2
It's the time of year when excited children might, on a regular basis, demonstrate a "difficulty sustaining attention in tasks or play activities," or they might "lose things necessary for tasks or activities," they may be "easily distracted by extraneous stimuli," they may have "difficulty playing or engaging in leisure activities quietly," or they may talk "excessively."

This sounds like normal childhood behaviour that goes hand-in-hand with the excitement, anticipation and activity of the festive season. It is normal, but to a psychiatrist, it's part of a list used to diagnose and label a child with so-called Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).

Add some arguments and some defiance in to the festive mix, eat too much, have difficulty walking away from the internet, become obsessive about the new phone, have anxieties over whether there's enough food to feed everyone, and you have even more normality. But according to psychiatrists, you have a compendium of 'disorders.'

Translated into psychobabble, you have labels like Oppositional Defiant Disorder, Internet Use Disorder, or Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.
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Map

Bama, Guangxi, China: The village with the secret to long life

Tania Branigan
The Guardian
Sat, 30 Dec 2000 10:58 UTC
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© Guardian/Tania Branigan
Huang Puxin, who says he is 114, waits for visitors at his home in Longevity Village in Bama, Guangxi.
Her T-shirted charges trailing behind her, the young guide swept into Huang Puxin's home and flicked her tour flag towards the centenarian, who was waiting on the sofa beneath a giant bas-relief inscribed with the word "longevity". "The old man is 113," she mumbled into her headset, turning away.

The tourists stuffed cash into piled-up red envelopes and moved in beside Huang, patting his knee as they handed him the money and posed for a picture.

Huang has lived through wars, famines, the rise and fall of Maoism and much more. But his life's latest turn may be its unlikeliest: reinvention as a tourist attraction. Bama county, in southern Guangxi, used to be one of China's poorest places. Now, thanks to residents such as Huang, it is a travel hotspot.

Famed for centuries for its residents' unusual longevity, it now has 81 centenarians. Proportional to population, that is roughly five times China's average.

A decade ago the best-known settlement in the county rebranded itself as Longevity Village, and in the past few years coverage and word of mouth have prompted a surge in visits. More than 640,000 people came in the first five months of 2013, boosting the economy by 406m yuan (£41m), say officials.

An estimated 20,000 health tourists - many times the number of native residents - live in the surrounding district, staying for months at a time. Thousands more arrive on coach trips, to receive the benediction of the oldest residents.
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Black Magic

Psychiatric dogmatism

Philip Hickey, Ph.D.
Behaviorism and Mental Health
Thu, 02 Jan 2014 14:05 UTC
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"It’s almost as if there’s a macabre conspiracy of silence among psychiatrists concerning the spuriousness of their concepts and the damage they inflict on their clients. In their “hearts” they all know that it’s there, and that it’s enormous, but no one is allowed to talk about it."
In November, Joanna Moncrieff, MD, a British psychiatrist who works as a Senior Lecturer in psychiatry at University College London and a practicing consultant psychiatrist, started her own blog. What's remarkable about this blog is that it is highly critical of psychiatry. Dr. Moncrieff marshals important facts and arguments in this area, and it is probably safe to say that her popularity among her peers is in decline.

The facts that she adduces, however, are indisputable, and her qualities of honesty, courage, and integrity are evident in everything she writes.

So far, she has written six posts. The central theme of three of these posts is antipsychotic (or as I prefer to say, neuroleptic) drugs.

Psychiatry has its head in the sand: Royal College of Psychiatrists rejects discussion of crucial research on antipsychotics (Dec 20)
"It seems not to be interested in discussing the serious harm its drugs can do to both physical and mental health, and in taking the steps necessary to minimise this harm. The profession appears to believe that if it keeps quiet about these inconvenient findings, and discusses them as little as possible, the fuss will blow over and nothing need change."
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Chart Bar

Most clinical studies on vitamins flawed by poor methodology


Science Daily
Mon, 30 Dec 2013 00:00 UTC
Image
© IrishCentral
Most large, clinical trials of vitamin supplements, including some that have concluded they are of no value or even harmful, have a flawed methodology that renders them largely useless in determining the real value of these micronutrients, a new analysis suggests.

Many projects have tried to study nutrients that are naturally available in the human diet the same way they would a powerful prescription drug. This leads to conclusions that have little scientific meaning, even less accuracy and often defy a wealth of other evidence, said Balz Frei, professor and director of the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University, in a new review published in the journal Nutrients.

These flawed findings will persist until the approach to studying micronutrients is changed, Frei said. Such changes are needed to provide better, more scientifically valid information to consumers around the world who often have poor diets, do not meet intake recommendations for many vitamins and minerals, and might greatly benefit from something as simple as a daily multivitamin/mineral supplement.
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Bacon n Eggs

Time to end the war against saturated fat?

Melissa Healy
Los Angeles Times
Tue, 22 Oct 2013 09:02 UTC
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The British Medical Journal has issued a clarion call to all who want to ward off heart disease: Forget the statins and bring back the bacon (or at least the full-fat yogurt). Saturated fat is not the widow-maker it's been made out to be, writes British cardiologist Aseem Malhotra in a stinging "Observations" column in the BMJ: The more likely culprits are empty carbs and added sugar.

Virtually all the truths about preventing heart attacks that physicians and patients have held dear for more than a generation are wrong and need to be abandoned, Malhotra writes. He musters a passel of recent research that suggests that the "obsession" with lowering a patients' total cholesterol with statins, and a public health message that has made all sources of saturated fat verboten to the health-conscious, have failed to reduce heart disease.

Indeed, he writes, they have set off market forces that have put people at greater risk. After the Framingham Heart Study showed a correlation between total cholesterol and risk for coronary artery disease in the early 1970s, patients at risk for heart disease were urged to swear off red meat, school lunchrooms shifted to fat-free and low-fat milk, and a food industry eager to please consumers cutting their fat intake rushed to boost the flavor of their new fat-free offerings with added sugar (and, of course, with trans-fats).

Comment: Avoid milk completely, see: Milk doesn't do your body good

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