Children between the ages of seven and 12 appear to be naturally inclined to feel empathy for others in pain, according to researchers at the University of Chicago, who used functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) scans to study responses in children.
The responses on the scans were similar to those found in studies of adults. Researchers found that children, like adults, show responses to pain in the same areas of their brains. The research also found additional aspects of the brain activated in children, when youngsters saw another person intentionally hurt by another individual.
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| ©University of Chicago
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| When a child is shown a photo of someone accidentally hurting himself, portions of the brain are activated which are related to pain.
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Russia could develop an AIDS vaccine within the next 10 to 15 years, the chief AIDS/HIV controller at Russia's consumer rights regulator said Thursday.
"The government has so far allocated over 1 billion rubles ($42.7 million) for [vaccine development]," Rospotrebnadzor's Alexander Goliusov said during a RIA Novosti TV link between Moscow and New Delhi to discuss the fight against AIDS. "We have vaccine candidates, but there is still a lot of work to do. We could expect a vaccine within the next 10 to 15 years."
The expert said three research centers in St. Petersburg, Moscow and Novosibirsk had been incorporated into a vaccine development team, and a group of HIV-positive patients in St. Petersburg had already been selected for tests.
As the CEO of a supplement company in Los Angeles, Andy Pham eats, breathes, and dreams nutritional supplements. In fact, he downs roughly 80 pills a day. Pham knows he's far from the norm. Heck, most people pat themselves on the back if they remember to swallow a single dietary booster, much less six dozen. So when asked to think like the average time-pressed American and choose just one nutrient to take every day, he doesn't hesitate. "Fish oil," he declares. "I take it for the omega-3 fatty acids. They're a great all-around inflammation reducer."
Whether he realizes it or not, Pham's advice is in lockstep with the latest medical buzz. Researchers are uncovering an insidious new medical reality: Inflammation, the body's most primitive weapon against infection and injury, may be at the root of some of the deadliest diseases of the 21st century, including heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and Alzheimer's.
The typical 65-year-old with arthritis, an ulcer, and heart disease goes to see three different doctors: a rheumatologist, a gastroenterologist, and a cardiologist, says Jack Challem, author of The Inflammation Syndrome. And he may walk out with three different treatment plans. "No one stops long enough to connect the dots and see the underlying inflammatory current," Challem says. As a result, what's missing is a unified voice offering patients nuts-and-bolts advice about how to stamp out inflammation before it burns out of control.
Most autoimmune diseases are official conditions "of unknown etiology" according to conventional medical science. Genetic factors appear to predispose individuals to autoimmune diseases, yet factors in the modern lifestyle must contribute to the conditions - autoimmune diseases are rare or nonexistent in primitive humans following a traditional diet and lifestyle. The cutting edge of research into the cause or trigger for these diseases focuses on loss of the integrity of natural barriers within the organism. The most important of these is the gut barrier, which, when it becomes pathologically permeable, becomes the key to the development of "leaky gut syndrome." Factors in the modern environment that damage the gut and other physiological barriers, such as vitamin and mineral malnutrition and injurious pharmaceutical drugs, may be responsible for the onset of autoimmunity.
Leo Galland M.D., F.A.C.N.
Health WorldFri, 11 Jul 2008 14:29 UTC
From the perspective of function, the contents of the gut lumen lie outside the body and contain a toxic/antigenic load from which the body needs to be protected. Protection is supplied by complex mechanisms which support one another: intestinal secretions (primarily mucus and secretory IgA), the mucosal epithelium, and intramural lymphocytes [1]. This primary, intestinal barrier is supported by the liver, through which all enterically-derived substances must pass before entering the arterial circulation for transport to other tissues and organs. Kupffer cells in the hepatic sinusoids remove absorbed macromolecules by phagocytosis. Hepatic microsomal enzymes alter gut-derived chemical substrates by oxidation and by conjugation to glycine and glutathione(GSH) for excretion into bile and for circulation to the kidneys. The cost of detoxification is high; reactive intermediates and free radicals are generated and anti-oxidants like GSH are consumed [2, 3]. Any compromise of intestinal barrier function increases the production of oxygen radicals and carcinogens by the liver's cytochrome P-450 mixed-function oxidase system. The excretion of oxidation by-products into bile and the reflux of this "toxic" bile into the pancreatic ducts may be the major cause of chronic pancreatic disease.[4, 5]
The National Kidney Foundation withdrew its support of water fluoridation citing the 2006 National Research Council (NRC) report indicating that kidney patients are more susceptible to fluoride's bone and teeth-damaging effects.
Water systems serving about 30 percent of Americans are not giving them fluoridated water, six decades after fluoridation was started as a public health measure to prevent tooth decay, officials said on Thursday.
Comment: As Dr. Paul Connett of St. Lawrence U. has
stated:
Fluoridation is unethical because:
1) It violates the individual's right to informed consent to medication.
2) The municipality cannot control the dose of the patient.
3) The municipality cannot track each individual's response.
4) It ignores the fact that some people are more vulnerable to fluoride's toxic effects than others. Some people will suffer while others may benefit.
5) It violates the Nuremberg code for human experimentation.
...
As stated by Dr. Peter Mansfield, a physician from the UK and advisory board member of the recent government review of fluoridation (McDonagh et al 2000):
"No physician in his right senses would prescribe for a person he has never met, whose medical history he does not know, a substance which is intended to create bodily change, with the advice: 'Take as much as you like, but you will take it for the rest of your life because some children suffer from tooth decay. ' It is a preposterous notion."
...
Fluoridation is ineffective because:
1) Major dental researchers concede that fluoride's benefits are topical not systemic (Fejerskov 1981; Carlos 1983; CDC 1999, 2001; Limeback 1999; Locker 1999; Featherstone 2000).
2) Major dental researchers also concede that fluoride is ineffective at preventing pit and fissure tooth decay, which is 85 percent of the tooth decay experienced by children (JADA 1984; Gray 1987; White 1993; Pinkham 1999).
3) Several studies indicate that dental decay is coming down just as fast, if not faster, in non-fluoridated industrialized countries as fluoridated ones (Diesendorf, 1986; Colquhoun, 1994; World Health Organization, Online).
4) The largest survey conducted in the U.S. showed only a minute difference in tooth decay between children who had lived all their lives in fluoridated compared to non-fluoridated communities. The difference was not clinically significant nor shown to be statistically significant (Brunelle & Carlos, 1990).
5) The worst tooth decay in the U.S. occurs in the poor neighborhoods of our largest cities, the vast majority of which have been fluoridated for decades.
6) When fluoridation has been halted in communities in Finland, former East Germany, Cuba and Canada, tooth decay did not go up but continued to go down (Maupome et al, 2001; Kunzel and Fischer, 1997, 2000; Kunzel et al, 2000 and Seppa et al, 2000).
Given all this, one has to wonder what the real agenda is here. Perhaps it's part of the
population control agenda as it
reduces fertility in males when added to drinking water. As Henry Kissinger's
National Security Study Memorandum 200 states explicitely about population reduction strategies, "In these sensitive relationships, however, it is important in style as well as substance to avoid the appearance of coercion"
Kari Lydersen
AlterNetThu, 10 Jul 2008 22:29 UTC
The idea of burning waste tires for energy is catching on, and one city is hoping to build the biggest facility yet. But some residents are concerned.
Green is not the color most people would associate with burning tires.
But that's how developers of a proposed tire-fueled power plant in hardscrabble Erie, Pa., describe their project. They say the plant, which would turn 900 tons of tires each day into a 90-megawatt power supply, would be an ecologically beneficial investment since it would keep tires out of landfills or illegal dumps and generate electricity with one-tenth the emissions of traditional coal-fired power plants.
The obesity epidemic is largely of our own making. The solution has to come from healthy activities, not the pharmaceutical industry.
One pill makes you larger and one pill makes you small. And the ones that mother gives you soon will control your cholesterol.
Childhood long ago ceased to involve idyllic hours chasing small animals through the field or even careening around the neighborhood on a bicycle. But do we really need to liven it up with Lipitor?
To the cocktail of drugs young children already are taking, the American Academy of Pediatrics is now recommending that some kids as young as 8 might benefit from cholesterol-reducing medication. The reasons are too familiar: Our kids are growing too fat (just like their parents), eating lots of the wrong foods (just like their parents), getting insufficient exercise (just like their parents), and showing the warning signs of serious future health problems -- high cholesterol levels -- that are precursors to heart attacks (just like they are for their parents).
As unwelcome as they are, higher gasoline prices do come with a plus side - fewer deaths from car accidents, says a researcher at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB).
An analysis of yearly vehicle deaths compared to gas prices found death rates drop significantly as people slow down and drive less. If gas remains at $4 a gallon or higher for a year or more, traffic deaths could drop by more than 1,000 per month nationwide, said Michael Morrisey, Ph.D., director of UAB's Lister Hill Center for Health Policy and a co-author on the new findings.
Comment: As Dr. Paul Connett of St. Lawrence U. has stated: Given all this, one has to wonder what the real agenda is here. Perhaps it's part of the population control agenda as it reduces fertility in males when added to drinking water. As Henry Kissinger's National Security Study Memorandum 200 states explicitely about population reduction strategies, "In these sensitive relationships, however, it is important in style as well as substance to avoid the appearance of coercion"