Health & WellnessS


Sun

Sugar Addiction is Real

Tom Jacobs
Miller-Mccune
Wed, 10 Dec 2008 00:29 UTC
Sugar article
© Photo by Jade GordonCut me some lines of that white stuff I crave.

Chocoholism may no longer be a joke. A Princeton University psychologist is today presenting new evidence that sugar can be physically addictive.

Bart Hoebel, whose research focuses on behavior patterns, addiction and the functioning of the nervous system, has been studying the addictive power of sugar in rats for several years. His previous studies have demonstrated in the rodents one of commonly understood component of addiction: a pattern of increased intake followed by signs of withdrawal.

In his most recent experiments, lab rats were allowed to binge on sugar, then denied the sweet substance for a prolonged period. When it was reintroduced into their diet, they ate more sugar than they had before - behavior that will sound familiar to many dieters.

Ominously, the rats increased their consumption of alcohol after their sugar fix was cut off. They also showed extreme sensitivity to a tiny dose of amphetamine. Both findings suggest their bingeing changed the way their brains function - and not in a good way.
Read More...
Pills

Diabetes drugs double women's fracture risk

Ben Hirschler
Reuters
Wed, 10 Dec 2008 06:50 UTC
Long-term use of GlaxoSmithKline's Avandia and Takeda's Actos doubles the risk of bone fractures in women with type 2 diabetes, according to a study released on Wednesday. Scientists already knew the two thiazolidinedione (TZD) drugs for diabetes were associated with fractures, but the magnitude of the risk had not been evaluated.

"This study shows that these agents double the risk of fractures in women with type 2 diabetes, who are already at higher risk before taking the therapy," said Sonal Singh of North Carolina's Wake Forest University School of Medicine.

Singh and colleagues at Wake Forest, working with researchers at Britain's University of East Anglia, based their findings on a pooled analysis of 10 previous clinical studies lasting at least a year involving 14,000 patients.
Read More...
Info

U.S. Amish gene trait may inspire heart protection

Will Dunham
Reuters
Thu, 11 Dec 2008 22:49 UTC
A rare genetic abnormality found in people in an insular Amish community protects them from heart disease, a discovery that could lead to new drugs to prevent heart ailments, U.S. researchers said on Thursday.

About 5 percent of Old Order Amish people in Pennsylvania's Lancaster County have only one working copy rather than the normal two of a gene that makes a protein that slows the breakdown of triglycerides, a type of fat that circulates in the blood, the researchers wrote in the journal Science.

"People who have the mutation all have low triglycerides," said Toni Pollin of the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, who led the study.

"This gives us clues that ultimately could develop future treatments."

Triglycerides naturally disappear more quickly in these people than in people without this gene mutation.
Read More...
Health

Many Americans turning to alternative medicine

Will Dunham
Reuters
Wed, 10 Dec 2008 21:24 UTC
About four in 10 U.S. adults and one in nine children are turning to unconventional medical approaches for chronic pain and other health problems, health officials said on Wednesday.

Back pain was the leading reason that Americans reported using complementary and alternative medicine techniques, followed by neck and joint pain as well as arthritis, according to the survey by the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

About 38 percent of adults used some form of complementary and alternative medicine in 2007, compared to 36 percent in 2002, the last time the government tracked at the matter.

For the first time, the survey looked at use of such medicine by children under age 18, finding that about 12 percent used it, officials said. The reasons included back pain, colds, anxiety, stress and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, according to the survey.

Comment: Have you listened to the latest SOTT Podcast Toxic World, Toxic Bodies?

Read More...
Attention

Methadone Fueling Prescription Drug Addiction Deaths Across America

Rod MacTaggart
Novus Detox News
Wed, 10 Dec 2008 21:22 UTC
Deaths and addictions involving the opioid painkiller methadone are rising faster than those from all other prescription narcotics, says the National Drug Intelligence Center, surpassing even OxyContin and Vicodin, which are major players in America's epidemic of prescription drug addiction.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), methadone prescriptions increased 715% between 2001 to 2006. And in November 2006, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a Public Health Advisory about the dangers of methadone, following the CDC's release of abuse and death statistics.
Read More...
Coffee

Brain cell hope for hearing loss


BBC News
Wed, 10 Dec 2008 19:33 UTC
Scientists believe a transplant of brain cells may one day be able to reverse a common form of hearing loss.

Damage to hair cells in the inner ear due to ageing and overstimulation causes hearing problems in 10% of people worldwide.

The cell loss is irreversible, but US scientists believe it may be possible to replace them with stem cells from a region of the brain.
Read More...
Toys

Ooga Ooga! Men Overspend to Attract Mates

Jeanna Bryner
Live Science
Wed, 10 Dec 2008 18:39 UTC
Men are hardwired after eons of evolution to overspend, a new study suggests. Their maxed-out credit cards and mega-purchases have been tied to their desire to attract mates.

The biggest male spenders in the survey were found to have the highest number of reported past partners and desired the most future partners.

The finding, detailed in the current issue of the journal Evolutionary Psychology, did not hold with women.
Read More...
Info

Bug genes are the key to human digestion


New Scientist
Wed, 10 Dec 2008 17:40 UTC
Without the "good" bacteria in our guts, we could not digest food. You might expect that we would all have the same set of bacteria to provide the chemical machinery that does the job. But this turns out to be only half true.

Knowing that gut bacteria are key to digestion and metabolism, Jeffrey Gordon of Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis, Missouri, and his colleagues went in search of a core group of bacterial species that aid digestion. They expected to find these species living in the guts of most healthy people.

When the researchers analysed faeces from 154 people this turned out not to be so. The subjects did, however, all possess the same core group of bacterial genes needed for digestion, albeit from different species (Nature, DOI: link).
Read More...
Bug

Blatant Lies and Propaganda! Cancer to be world's top killer by 2010, WHO says

Mike Stobbe
Associated Press
Wed, 10 Dec 2008 03:13 UTC

Comment: While it is true that cancer is increasing in the population, as reported in this article, what is NOT true is that it is due to an increase use of tobacco. Nearly all of the researchers in the field (excluding some of those funded by pharmaceutical companies) state unequivocally that nearly ALL cancers are caused by environmental toxins, NOT by smoking tobacco!


Cancer will overtake heart disease as the world's top killer by 2010, part of a trend that should more than double global cancer cases and deaths by 2030, international health experts said in a report released Tuesday.

Rising tobacco use in developing countries is believed to be a huge reason for the shift, particularly in China and India, where 40 percent of the world's smokers now live.

So is better diagnosing of cancer, along with the downward trend in infectious diseases that used to be the world's leading killers.

Comment: According to this article, the increase in cancer has nothing to do with chronic stress, diet, industrial pollution such as pesticides, heavy metals, DDT, cadmium, styrene, dioxin, xylene, mercury, aluminum, fungicides, formaldehyde, dioxins, just to name a few. No, contrary to all available evidence, it must be that these very poor people simply smoke too many cigarettes.

Read More...
Syringe

Avoid Flu Shots, Take Vitamin D Instead

Donald W. Miller, Jr., MD
Lew Rockwell
Fri, 03 Oct 2008 15:33 UTC
Another influenza season is beginning in the northern temperate zone, and our government's Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will strongly urge Americans to get a flu shot. Health officials will say that every winter 5 - 20 percent of the population catches the flu, 200,000 people are hospitalized, and 36,000 people will die from it.
Read More...