Health & Wellness
Scientists at the Ponce School of Medicine in Puerto Rico investigated 268 women with malignant breast tumors and 457 healthy controls to look for possible causative factors for breast cancer. The results, which were recently presented by Jaime Matta, Ph.D., at the American Association for Cancer Research's 101st Annual Meeting held in Washington, D.C., showed vitamin supplements reduced the risk of breast cancer by about 30%.
"It is not an immediate effect. You don't take a vitamin today and your breast cancer risk is reduced tomorrow. However, we did see a long-term effect in terms of breast cancer reduction," Dr. Matta, who headed the study, said in a statement to the press. "We're not talking about mega doses of these vitamins and calcium supplements, so this is definitely one way to reduce risk."
Doctors have long recommended that people who have survived heart attacks or strokes take an aspirin a day in order to reduce their risk of dying from another cardiovascular event. Between 2005 and 2006, however, many health professionals began to recommend the practice in people who had never suffered a cardiovascular event, but who were considered "at risk" to do so - such as those over the age of 50, those with Type 2 diabetes or those with high blood pressure.
"Current evidence for primary prevention suggests the benefits and harms of aspirin in this setting may be more finely balanced than previously thought," said DTB editor Ike Ikeanacho, "even in individuals estimated to be at high risk of experiencing cardiovascular events, including those with diabetes or elevated blood pressure."
HRT drugs were approved for reducing the symptoms of menopause, such as hot flashes and mood swings. They became widely popular, with 11 million women between the ages of 45 and 74 using them by 1999. Although no evidence ever linked them to a lowered risk of heart disease, lawsuits allege that pharmaceutical companies covertly marketed them for this purpose.
In 2002, the Women's Health Initiative study found that the drugs significantly increased women's risk of dying from heart attacks, strokes, and blood clots. Since then, research has also linked the drugs to breast cancer and dementia. Use of the drugs fell to six million by 2003.
Prof. Elke Kalbe and colleagues from the Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine at the Research Centre Juelich and the Neurological University Clinic Cologne, Germany, studied a group of male volunteers as they performed a computerized task, which assessed their abilities in both emotional and rational inference. The researchers then applied repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) to a part of the brain thought to be involved in rational inference -- the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex -- in order to interfere temporarily with the activity in that part of the brain and test its effect on the ToM abilities of the volunteers.
The findings showed that the temporary interference in this particular area of the brain had an effect on the rational inference abilities (cognitive ToM) of the volunteers, but not on their abilities to infer emotions (affective ToM).
For an infant, a mother's touch provides a feeling of security, comfort and love. But research at UC Irvine is showing that it does much more.
UCI child neurologist and neuroscientist Dr. Tallie Z. Baram has found that caressing and other sensory input triggers activity in a baby's developing brain that improves cognitive function and builds resilience to stress.
The finding contributes to growing knowledge about epigenetics, the study of how environmental factors can reprogram the expression of genes.
UI scientists came up with this discovery while investigating docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), an omega-3 the body can make from alpha-linolenic acids found in vegetable oils, including soybean and canola oils. DHA is already known to be important for the development of the body's nervous system. But it turns out DHA also may correct two major causes of male infertility -- low sperm counts and abnormally shaped sperm.
"In our experiment, we used 'knockout' mice that lacked the gene responsible for an enzyme important in making DHA. In the absence of DHA, male mice are basically infertile, producing few if any misshaped sperm that can't get where they need to go," Manabu Nakamura, a UI associate professor of food science and human nutrition, explained in a press statement.
Medical radiation from exams such as CTs, or computed tomography, causes 29,000 new cancers a year, a report in the Archives of Internal Medicine showed in December. An accompanying article found that the scans may expose people to four times as much radiation as previously estimated. The Food and Drug Administration is considering safeguards for CT scanners and other imaging machines.
"It's a very serious issue," says radiologist Sobhi Abadi of McGill University in Montreal, who presented his research Tuesday at a meeting of the American Roentgen Ray Society in San Diego.
Radiologists have been working for several years to reduce unnecessary radiation exposure in children, whose growing bodies are more sensitive to radiation than adults', says Richard Morin, chairman of the American College of Radiology's Safety Committee. Later this year, he says, radiologists will expand the effort to adults.
But Morin says other doctors also need to do more to protect patients, such as referring them for imaging tests only when they're really necessary. Studies show that one-third of CT scans aren't medically needed but are performed because of fear of lawsuits, among other reasons.
There is growing evidence that combining activities such as walking or cycling with nature boosts well-being.
In the latest analysis, UK researchers looked at evidence from 1,250 people in 10 studies and found fast improvements in mood and self-esteem.
PBDE flame retardants have been used for decades in a wide variety of goods, including automobile and airplane components, electronics, and home and office furnishings. The toxicologic evidence linking PBDEs to adverse health effects led the European Union to use the precautionary principle as the basis for banning all three PBDE formulations (penta, octa, and deca). In the United States, manufacturers voluntarily discontinued the penta and octa formulations in 2004 and have agreed to phase out deca by the end of 2012.
That is, of course, an outright lie.
This video features myself (the Health Ranger) talking with Jeffrey Smith about the health dangers of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) at the recent Health Freedom Expo. Natural News staff filmed the segment, and we used intro music legally licensed from a music production company. There was no violation of the YouTube terms of agreement.













Comment: See other articles regarding HRT:
Hormone Replacement Therapy Drugs Based on Medical Fraud
Pfizer Hid Evidence That Hormone Replacement Therapy Causes Cancer
Hormone Replacement Therapy Now Linked to Cataracts
Study Shows HRT Decreases Mortality in Younger Postmenopausal Woman
Hormone Replacement Therapy Leads to Female Brain Shrinkage
Hormone Therapy Skews Breast Cancer Diagnosis