Health & WellnessS


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Study Shows 1% of Americans Have Been Infected With West Nile


Atlanta Journal Constitution
Thu, 10 Sep 2009 05:50 UTC
One in every 100 Americans has been infected with the West Nile virus, whether they know it or not.

That number has grown steadily since the virus first appeared in North America in 1999, according to a study in the October issue of the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases.

Several West Nile vaccine trials are under way or are being planned, and these findings could not only help yield needed antibodies to the virus, they may help determine future vaccines' effectiveness, said the study authors, from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Baxter Bioscience.
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Study results challenge 'hygiene hypothesis'


ABC News
Thu, 10 Sep 2009 05:47 UTC
It's been thought for some time that early day care exposes kids to more germs and illnesses at an early age and, as a result, protects them from asthma and allergies later on.

Scientists call it the 'hygiene hypothesis' but a new study finds that's not true and early infections have no effect on asthma and allergy rates by the age of 8.
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Health

The Calcium Myth

Michael Castleman
Natural Solutions Magazine
Sat, 01 Aug 2009 05:29 UTC
We've been told all our lives to drink milk for strong bones. Many of us even feel guilty when we don't get the recommended three servings of dairy each day. In fact, we've been led to believe that we have a "calcium crisis" in the United States because so many of us don't get enough dairy. The proposed solution? Drink more milk, eat more yogurt and cheese, and take calcium supplements.

So why are we convinced that milk, dairy foods, and calcium supplements prevent the fractures osteoporosis can cause? Because teachers, doctors, and advertisers have told us we need calcium - and lots of it - to keep our bones strong as we age. Because every major US health agency endorses daily consumption of milk and dairy: the Surgeon General, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, and the National Osteoporosis Foundation.

But consider this: The most industrially advanced countries - the US, Australia, New Zealand, and most Western European nations - have the highest fracture rates, yet consume more dairy than anywhere else in the world. Meanwhile, the people in much of Asia and Africa consume little or no milk (after weaning), few dairy foods, and next to no calcium supplements, and their fracture rates are 50 to 70 percent lower than ours. What's going on?
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Bandaid

Exhausted Australian doctors told to drink more coffee

Bonnie Malkin
Telegraph
Tue, 08 Sep 2009 11:30 UTC
Exhausted doctors in Australia's northeastern state of Queensland have been advised by the government to drink more coffee.

A 102-page "fatigue management strategy" developed by Queensland Health, has recommended that the "strategic use of caffeine" could be beneficial to extremely tired doctors.
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Syringe

Best of the Web: Another Shocking Warning About Swine Flu Vaccine


Mercola.com
Tue, 08 Sep 2009 18:00 UTC
vaccine
© Unknown
The swine flu vaccine has been hit by new cancer fears after a German health expert gave a shocking warning about its safety.

Lung specialist Wolfgang Wodarg has said that there are many risks associated with the vaccine for the H1N1 virus. The nutrient solution for the vaccine consists of cancerous cells from animals, and some fear that the risk of cancer could be increased by injecting the cells.

The vaccine can also cause worse side effects than the actual swine flu virus.
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Health

1918 Influenza: A Treatment That Worked

Kim Evans
Natural News
Wed, 09 Sep 2009 16:44 UTC
At least twenty million people died in the 1918 influenza epidemic and Eleanora McBean, Ph.D., N.D. tells us something pretty interesting about it. Drug-oriented medical doctors and hospitals, she tells us, "were losing 33% of their flu cases," while "non-medical hospitals such as Battle Creek, Kellogg and MacFadden's Health Restorium were getting almost 100% healings."

Most people reading this already know that drugs are almost never the answer to what ails the body. But, do you know how they were achieving an almost 100% recovery rate at Battle Creek, a facility run by Dr. John Harvey Kellogg?
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Life Preserver

Money Won't Buy Happiness, Study Finds; Poverty-reduction Programs Need To Also Look At Improving People's Well-being


Science Daily
Tue, 08 Sep 2009 21:26 UTC
There is more to life satisfaction than money, and public policy programs aiming to tackle poverty need to move beyond simply raising people's income to also improving their quality of life in other areas.

These findings by Professor Mariano Rojas from Mexico's Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales are published online in Springer's journal, Applied Research in Quality of Life.

The reduction of poverty is one of the main considerations in the design of both domestic and foreign-aid programs. To date, the focus of these programs has been to get people out of poverty by increasing their buying power and there has been an assumption that raising people's income translates into greater well-being. Professor Rojas challenges this assumption and argues that measures of life satisfaction should also be taken into account when designing and evaluating poverty-abatement programs.
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Life Preserver

Why Cry? Evolutionary Biologists Show Crying Can Strengthen Relationships


Science Daily
Tue, 08 Sep 2009 21:17 UTC
Image
© iStockMedically, crying is known to be a symptom of physical pain or stress. But now an evolutionary biologist looks to empirical evidence showing that tears have emotional benefits and can make interpersonal relationships stronger.
Medically, crying is known to be a symptom of physical pain or stress. But now a Tel Aviv University evolutionary biologist looks to empirical evidence showing that tears have emotional benefits and can make interpersonal relationships stronger.

New analysis by Dr. Oren Hasson of TAU's Department of Zoology shows that tears still signal physiological distress, but they also function as an evolution-based mechanism to bring people closer together.

"Crying is a highly evolved behavior," explains Dr. Hasson. "Tears give clues and reliable information about submission, needs and social attachments between one another. My research is trying to answer what the evolutionary reasons are for having emotional tears.
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Cheeseburger

Food Is Power and the Powerful Are Poisoning Us

Chris Hedges
Truthdig.com
Sun, 06 Sep 2009 20:29 UTC
Our most potent political weapon is food. If we take back our agriculture, if we buy and raise produce locally, we can begin to break the grip of corporations that control a food system as fragile, unsafe and destined for collapse as our financial system. If we continue to allow corporations to determine what we eat, as well as how food is harvested and distributed, then we will become captive to rising prices and shortages and increasingly dependent on cheap, mass-produced food filled with sugar and fat. Food, along with energy, will be the most pressing issue of our age. And if we do not build alternative food networks soon, the social and political ramifications of shortages and hunger will be devastating.

The effects of climate change, especially with widespread droughts in Australia, Africa, California and the Midwest, coupled with the rising cost of fossil fuels, have already blighted the environments of millions. The poor can often no longer afford a balanced diet. Global food prices increased an average of 43 percent since 2007, according to the International Monetary Fund. These increases have been horrific for the approximately 1 billion people - one-sixth of the world's population - who subsist on less than $1 per day. And 162 million of these people survive on less than 50 cents per day. The global poor spend as much as 60 percent of their income on food, according to the International Food Policy Research Institute.
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Picturing Yourself - On Facebook And Elsewhere


Physorg.com
Thu, 03 Sep 2009 18:34 UTC
Geeky, cheeky, serious or plain? What's the reasoning behind the photo you choose to place on the social networking site Facebook - or the photo you give to friends and family?

It's just one topic to be explored by Judy Weiser, a world authority on the emotional content of photographs, when she visits the University of Derby this month for a public workshop on Phototherapy.

Judy Weiser, a globally renowned psychologist and art therapist, who has been using photos to assist her therapy practice for more than 30 years, is visiting the UK this autumn to take part in a series of international lectures and teach two workshops in this subject area.
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