Health & Wellness
What will happen to the asthma "epidemic" in Michigan and related fast-rising health care costs if Congress decides to block updates to the Clean Air Act?
Three registered nurses addressed those questions during a press conference Wednesday.
In a major, first-ever report released in part by Health Care Without Harm, analyses detailed asthma incidents and cost data. It is reported there is already a staggering human and financial toll of asthma in the country.
A five-center collaborative study that scanned the genomes of thousands of "never smokers" diagnosed with lung cancer, as well as healthy never smokers, has found a gene they say could be responsible for a significant number of those cancers.
"This is the first gene that has been found that is specifically associated with lung cancer in people who have never smoked," study lead investigator, Ping Yang, M.D., Ph.D., Mayo Clinic genetic epidemiologist, was quoted as saying.
The research was co-led by scientists at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, Harvard University, University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) and MD Anderson Cancer Center. Researchers found that this allele leads to greatly reduced GPC5 expression, compared to normal lung tissue. The finding suggests that the GPC5 gene has an important tumor suppressor-like function and that insufficient function can promote lung cancer development.
Chapter 9: Smoking Animals
Remember the smoking beagles? Movietone News, the old newsreel company, featured a piece on these cute little dogs, shot some time in the 1950's or 60's. It's sometimes re-run on late night TV, even today.
Actually, the experiment was rather cruel (although not nearly so much so as later ones). The beagles were strapped side-by-side to a long bench, in a rather unnatural upright position. They were fitted with face masks, which forced them to inhale and exhale smoke from lighted cigarettes. A mechanical device lit a new cigarette and dropped it into the air line, as soon as an old one was used up. Although the Surgeon General later claimed that the smoking machines did not force animals to inhale and exhale deeply, the newsreel footage sure made it look as if the dogs were inhaling and exhaling very deeply.
It was, perhaps, the smoking Beagles that were referred to in the 1964 SG's Report, when the Committee made the observation that with the "possible exception of dogs", the animal experiments had all failed to induce lung cancers. Whatever the case, in the 1971 Report, the Surgeon General conceded that the experiments with dogs, using smoking machines, had failed. However, also in the 1971 Report, the SG described a new experiment, conducted by a government physician, Oscar Auerbach, and others, in which the Beagles were forced to smoke in what the SG described as a "more natural" manner.
Nowadays we look back on American prohibition with justifiable astonishment. Is it really true that an entire nation allowed itself to be denied a beer or scotch by a tiny group of tambourine-bashing fanatics? Sadly, yes it is, despite a total lack of evidence that alcohol causes any harm to humans, unless consumed in truly astronomical quantities.
The mitochondria are a very unique structure within the cell. They are the powerhouse of the cell and are the only intracellular organelle that has its own DNA and is able to divide and replicate on its own. The general consensus among researchers is that mitochondrial dysfunction plays a central role in nearly every degenerative disease.
The major factors involved in poor mitochondrial function include deficiencies in critical cellular nutrients, proprioceptive deficiencies, and environmental toxicity. The standard American diet, sedentary lifestyle, and ubiquitous amount of toxins in our society make today's generation far more susceptible for mitochondrial dysfunction than ever before.
Eating gluten free isn't difficult once a person knows what to look for. Fortunately, there are many alternatives to grains that have glutens. Being familiar with varieties of grains with glutens and reading labels of products that aren't well known are key to one's success.
Comment: While it's true that other grains such as rice and corn are 'gluten' free, it's important to understand that gluten belongs to a family of proteins called 'prolamins', and these other grains contain different kinds of prolamins.
Plants can't fight back when an animal comes along to eat them, so they developed a different method for warding off predators. The proteins they contain are indigestible and can lead to inflammation of the gut, body, skin and wet linings of the animals who eat them, often resulting in chronic disease.
Do your research thoroughly if you are interested in staying fit and well.
Bottom line: this gene (dubbed the New Delhi metallo-s-lactamase 1 gene, NDM-1, for short) enables bacteria to resist virtually any and perhaps all antibiotics.
These multidrug-resistant bacteria have been found in public water supplies and urban effluent in New Delhi. But this isn't a problem limited to India. While researchers writing in the latest issue of the journal Lancet say the findings in India pose the worrisome possibility that NDM-1 is widespread in the environment of that country, there are plenty of reasons to be concerned the bacteria could be spreading to other parts of the planet.
You have to hand it to the nuclear industry and its acolytes. In the middle of the second-worst nuclear power disaster in history at Fukushima, and with still no end in sight, you would think they would respond with contrition, humility and profuse mea culpas. Not on your life. The industry representatives and its acolytes came out swinging in full denial attire.
Ziggy Switkowski, former chair of ANSTO (Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation) and a proponent of nuclear power for Australia, claimed "the best place to be whenever there's an earthquake is at the perimeter of a nuclear plant because they are designed so well", and then quickly added: "On the other hand, you know, if the engineers do lose control of the core, then the answer becomes different."
Strident nuclear advocate Professor Barry Brook gave assurances in his running commentary that seemed ironically prescient of what was about to happen, stating ''I don't see the ramifications of this as damaging at all to nuclear power's prospects'' and that ''it will provide a great conversation starter for talking intelligently to people about nuclear safety''.
It's the great global cover-up in all this: What happens to all the radioactive cesium being dumped into the ocean right now? It doesn't just burn itself out in a few months like iodine-131. This stuff sticks around for centuries.










Comment: Perhaps these "never smokers" are people whose genetic profile means they actually need to smoke in order to supplement their immune systems, but have been scared away from doing so by the anti-smoking propaganda, leaving them exposed to developing cancers?
Smoking does NOT cause lung cancer, in fact it just might protect you from nuclear fallout
Smoking Helps Protect Against Lung Cancer
Let's All Light Up!