Health & WellnessS


Blackbox

'She ran around like a maniac'

Nicola Fell
British Broadcasting Corporation
Mon, 20 Apr 2009 11:21 UTC
Rain is pelting down on Doña Porcela's treatment room in Puerto Cabezas, the main town on Nicaragua's Northern Caribbean coast.

The room is barren except for a few plastic chairs, a wooden table and some old plastic bottles balanced precariously on timber beams.

Doña Porcela is a respected traditional healer here and the bottles are filled with her secret medicinal potions.

Her patient today is a teenage girl asleep on a piece of cardboard, serving as a mattress on the dirt floor.

"Grisi Siknis turns people into witches and they go crazy," she said.

Last year there were 65 cases of Grisi Siknis, which translates from the local Miskito language as 'crazy sickness'.
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Pills

China drug scams challenge pharmaceutical firms

Michael Wei and Tan Ee Lyn
Reuters
Mon, 20 Apr 2009 07:46 UTC
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© Reuters/China DailyPolicemen check confiscated fake drugs in Xuchang, Henan province, March 18, 2009.
When Pang Jianli walked into a Beijing pharmacy to buy medicine for his flu-stricken son, he was greeted by an overwhelming display of boxes and bottles emblazoned with promises of miraculous cures.

"Unlike shopping in supermarkets, where I buy the brands I know and I know the brands I buy, buying drugs is different; the brands you know may not be what they claim to be," said the 38-year-old father.

China's poorly regulated medical market has spawned a new 'Wild West' for untested drugs offered by fly-by-night firms. The medical 'free-for-all' is reminiscent of the era of 'snake-oil salesmen' over a century ago in the United States.
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Attention

Blind to be cured with stem cells

Sarah-Kate Templeton
Sunday Times
Mon, 20 Apr 2009 02:10 UTC
British scientists have developed the world's first stem cell therapy to cure the most common cause of blindness. Surgeons predict it will become a routine, one-hour procedure that will be generally available in six or seven years' time.

The treatment involves replacing a layer of degenerated cells with new ones created from embryonic stem cells. It was pioneered by scientists and surgeons from the Institute of Ophthalmology at University College London and Moorfields eye hospital.

This week Pfizer, the world's largest pharmaceutical research company, will announce its financial backing to bring the therapy to patients.

The treatment will tackle age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the most common cause of blindness. It affects more than 500,000 Britons and the number is forecast to increase significantly as people live longer. The disease involves the loss of eye cells.
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USA

US: Crestwood officials supplied residents with tainted water for 2 decades

Michael Hawthorne
Chicago Tribune
Sun, 19 Apr 2009 00:55 UTC
Like every town across the nation, south suburban Crestwood tucks a notice into utility bills each summer reassuring residents their drinking water is safe. Village leaders also trumpet the claim in their monthly newsletter, while boasting they offer the cheapest water rates in Cook County.

But those pronouncements hide a troubling reality: For more than two decades, the 11,000 or so residents in this working-class community unknowingly drank tap water contaminated with toxic chemicals linked to cancer and other health problems, a Tribune investigation found.

As village officials were building a national reputation for pinching pennies, and sending out fliers proclaiming Crestwood water was "Good to taste but not to waste!," state and village records obtained by the newspaper show they secretly were drawing water from a contaminated well, apparently to save money.
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Syringe

Tons of released drugs taint US water

Jeff Donn, Marths Mendoza & Justin Pritchard
Associated Press
Sun, 19 Apr 2009 18:56 UTC
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© Associated PressIn this photo taken on Feb. 26, 2009, aeration basins are seen in operation at the Wilmington Wastewater Treatment Plant in Wilmington, Del. Scientists took samples from the Delaware River nearby and found elevated concentrations of the painkiller codeine that are prompting them to try and track the source of the drug; this treatment plant handles sewage from a nearby pharmaceutical factory that makes codeine
U.S. manufacturers, including major drugmakers, have legally released at least 271 million pounds of pharmaceuticals into waterways that often provide drinking water - contamination the federal government has consistently overlooked, according to an Associated Press investigation.

Hundreds of active pharmaceutical ingredients are used in a variety of manufacturing, including drugmaking: For example, lithium is used to make ceramics and treat bipolar disorder; nitroglycerin is a heart drug and also used in explosives; copper shows up in everything from pipes to contraceptives.

Federal and industry officials say they don't know the extent to which pharmaceuticals are released by U.S. manufacturers because no one tracks them - as drugs. But a close analysis of 20 years of federal records found that, in fact, the government unintentionally keeps data on a few, allowing a glimpse of the pharmaceuticals coming from factories.
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Blackbox

Choice blindness: You don't know what you want

Lars Hall and Petter Johansson
New Scientist
Sat, 18 Apr 2009 17:29 UTC

We have all heard of experts who fail basic tests of sensory discrimination in their own field: wine snobs who can't tell red from white wine (albeit in blackened cups), or art critics who see deep meaning in random lines drawn by a computer. We delight in such stories since anyone with pretensions to authority is fair game. But what if we shine the spotlight on choices we make about everyday things? Experts might be forgiven for being wrong about the limits of their skills as experts, but could we be forgiven for being wrong about the limits of our skills as experts on ourselves?
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Health

Chiropractic Care treats inconsolable crying (Colic)

Sheryl Walters
NaturalNews.com
Fri, 17 Apr 2009 07:31 UTC
Colic is defined as inconsolable crying in an infant for as least three hours a day, at least three days a week, for at least three weeks. A colicky baby typically presents with a loud piercing cry, flexed legs, tensed abdominal muscles, and clenched fingers. It typically starts around three weeks of age and lasts until around three months but sometimes lasts for as long as six months. Approximately 10-20% of babies are affected by colic. Doctors diagnose colic based on the previously mentioned "Rule of 3" and after ruling out diseases that may make a baby cry uncontrollably. Parents of infants with colic report significantly higher stress levels than parents whose babies don't have colic. The stress and frustration of trying to soothe a colicky baby may interfere with mother-baby bonding and can increase the risk of postpartum depression. In addition, colicky babies are more likely to be victims of child abuse and shaken baby syndrome. Despite the research done on colic there is no known cause, which can make treatment difficult. Chiropractic care has shown some of the best results, with 94% of colicky babies demonstrating improvement with chiropractic adjustments.
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Pills

Recommended daily vitamin D intake doubled

David Gutierrez
NaturalNews.com
Fri, 17 Apr 2009 07:21 UTC
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has doubled its recommended daily vitamin D intake for children and adolescents, citing concern over rising levels of rickets as well as new evidence that higher vitamin D intake may help prevent against a wide variety of diseases.

Vitamin D plays a critical role in bone health. Deficiency in children can lead to the bone-softening disease rickets, which can cause permanent deformity.

"New evidence [also] supports a potential role for vitamin D in maintaining innate immunity and preventing diseases such as diabetes and cancer," the new policy reads.
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Health

Beliefs don't have to be proven to 'light up' the brain


USA Today
Sat, 18 Apr 2009 06:48 UTC
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See this pretty picture of a brain lit up by singing gospel songs? What if I told you those same pathways would light up for a Madonna fan at a karaoke bar yelping along with the rocker's lyrics.

Dr. Alasdair Coles, a lecturer in neurology at University of Cambridge, and an Anglican priests as well, takes a very acerbic look at brain imaging studies of the faithful, particular those that make claims of unique brain findings for people who have religious or mystical experiences.

His lecture at our seminar today was titled "Neurotheology" and he had a definition: "the scientific study of the mechanisms of brain function which underlie human religious behavior, belief and experience." Then he debunked his own title.
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Propaganda

Anti Smoking Propaganda - Fruit and vegetables may be harmful to smokers


NineMSN
Thu, 16 Apr 2009 08:21 UTC
Image
© Unknown
Smokers may increase their chances of contracting colon cancer by eating fruit and vegetables, according to a new Europe-wide scientific study says.

A high intake of fruit and vegetables appeared to reduce the risk among non-smokers but seemed to have the reverse effect on smokers, findings by the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) showed on Wednesday.

"People who eat 600 grams or more vegetables and fruit a day appear to have a 20 to 25 per cent lower chance of developing colon cancer than people who eat 220 grams or less," said the statement.

"For smokers, the consumption of vegetables and fruit appears, on the contrary, to increase the chances of colon cancer. Protection against colon cancer through the consumption of vegetables and fruit therefore appears to depend on smoking habits."

Comment: Considering this was supposedly a large study taken over many years, the authors are surprisingly uncertain about their results, casting aspersions on the effects of fruit and vegetables for smokers without actually making any definite claims. Note the use of "appears" and "may".

We also wonder if this fruit problem described in relation to smokers might have anything to do with this other fruit problem?

Rising number of children allergic to fruits and vegetables

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