Health & WellnessS


Family

Children Exposed to Harmful Radiation from Unnecessary CT Scans

If a child is accidentally hit in the head with a baseball or kicked in the forehead during roughhousing, it can be scary for the youngster and the parents, too. After all, traumatic brain injuries are sometimes serious. They result in about 7,400 deaths a year to American kids 18 years old and younger. So it makes sense to have children checked out for a concussion or other signs of brain injury if they've experienced head trauma, especially if they were knocked unconscious. But far too many kids with knocks to their "noggins" are being routinely treated as if they had serious brain injuries -- even if they don't have significant symptoms of a neurological problem -- and given unnecessary, radiation-loaded computerized tomography (CT) scans.

That's the conclusion of a study just published online and slated for an upcoming edition of the print version of the medical journal the Lancet. Nathan Kuppermann, of the University of California at Davis Departments of Emergency Medicine and Pediatrics, and colleagues found there are validated ways doctors can identify children at very low risk of clinically important traumatic brain injuries (ciTBIs). That's important because these simple, non-invasive findings on an exam should keep the vast majority of youngsters with head trauma from having CT scans which expose them to potentially cancer-causing radiation.

The study investigated the records of more than 42,000 children, including CT scans that had been performed on 35 percent of them. About 25 percent of the youngsters were under the age of two, and the others were three to 18 years old. Out of this group, ciTBIs had occurred in only 376 (one percent) and just 60 (0.1 percent) underwent neurosurgery for their injuries.

Bell

Common Herbicides And Fibrates Block Nutrient-sensing Receptor Found in Gut and Pancreas

According to new research from the Monell Center and the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, certain common herbicides and lipid-lowering fibrate drugs act in humans to block T1R3, a nutrient-sensing taste receptor also present in intestine and pancreas.

Commonly used in agriculture and medicine, these chemical compounds were not previously known to act on the T1R3 receptor.

The T1R3 receptor is a critical component of both the sweet taste receptor and the umami (amino acid) taste receptor. First identified on the tongue, emerging evidence indicates that T1R3 and related taste receptors also are located on hormone-producing cells in the intestine and pancreas.

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Association Between Mediterranean Diet and Reduced Risk of Depression

Individuals who follow the Mediterranean dietary pattern - rich in vegetables, fruits, nuts, whole grains and fish - appear less likely to develop depression, according to a report of the University of Navarra, published in the October issue of Archives of General Psychiatry.

The lifetime prevalence of mental disorders has been found to be lower in Mediterranean than Northern European countries, according to background information in the article. One plausible explanation is that the diet commonly followed in the region may be protective against depression. Previous research has suggested that the monounsaturated fatty acids in olive oil - used abundantly in the Mediterranean diet - may be associated with a lower risk of severe depressive symptoms.

The researchers studied 10,094 healthy Spanish participants who completed an initial questionnaire between 1999 and 2005. Participants reported their dietary intake on a food frequency questionnaire, and the researchers calculated their adherence to the Mediterranean diet based on nine components (high ratio of monounsaturated fatty acids to saturated fatty acids; moderate intake of alcohol and dairy products; low intake of meat; and high intake of legumes, fruit and nuts, cereals, vegetables and fish).

Family

Children Can Greatly Reduce Abdominal Pain by Using Their Imagination

Children with functional abdominal pain who used audio recordings of guided imagery at home in addition to standard medical treatment were almost three times as likely to improve their pain problem, compared to children who received standard treatment alone.

And those benefits were maintained six months after treatment ended, a new study by University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University Medical Center researchers has found.

The study is published in the November 2009 issue of the journal Pediatrics. The lead author is Miranda van Tilburg, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology in the UNC School of Medicine and a member of the UNC Center for Functional GI & Motility Disorders.

"What is especially exciting about our study is that children can clearly reduce their abdominal pain a lot on their own with guidance from audio recordings, and they get much better results that way than from medical care alone," said van Tilburg. "Such self-administered treatment is, of course, very inexpensive and can be used in addition to other treatments, which potentially opens the door for easily enhancing treatment outcomes for a lot of children suffering from frequent stomach aches."

Syringe

MIT grad shows CDC mind-behavior control duping doctors and public to buy vaccine

Buyer beware

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) officials are almost ready for their PR company to unleash a sophisticated, powerful H1N1 'swine flu' vaccine multimedia marketing campaign to dupe doctors and exploit society's most vulnerable through what social scientists call mind control that aims for behavior control.

In this case, the desired behavior is to accept a toxic spray or injection by obediently obeying the mind control marketing ploy, even against personal better judgment.

Richard Gale and Dr. Gary Null reported today that Peter Doshi first brought public attention to a CDC public relations influenza strategy known as the Seven Step Recipe.

Nuke

US, California: Los Angeles hospital exposed patients to high radiation

California public health officials are investigating medical errors at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles in which 206 patients were exposed to high doses of radiation during CT brain scans.

The report came as the FDA issued an alert to hospitals nationwide, warning them to review their safety procedures for CT scans. But the alert did not specifically name Cedars-Sinai.

"The magnitude of these overdoses and their impact on the affected patients were significant," the FDA said, warning that undetected overdoses put "patients at increased risk for long-term radiation effects."

Pills

How Much Vitamin D Do You Really Need to Take?

On November 3 at the University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, noted doctors Cedric Garland and Tracey O'Connor are running a seminar on how vitamin D can be used to prevent breast cancer -- as well as infectious diseases, type 1 diabetes, hypertension, colon cancer, and falls in the elderly.

Presenters will include some of the best known vitamin D researchers/practitioners, such as Robert P. Heaney, Reinhold Vieth, John White and Susan Whiting.
It is estimated that 25 to 50 percent of any healthcare budget could be saved with adequate vitamin D serum levels.

The conference will look at the current research and practice with vitamin D to enable everyone to take action today based on what's known to solve the deficiency epidemic, and to start the prevention of many diseases.


Sources: Grass Roots Health

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Blood Counts Are Clues To Human Disease

A new genome-wide association study published October 11 in Nature Genetics begins to uncover the basis of genetic variations in eight blood measurements and the impact those variants can have on common human diseases. Blood measurements, including the number and volume of cells in the blood, are routinely used to diagnose a wide range of disorders, including anaemia, infection and blood cell cancers.

An international team of scientists measured haemoglobin concentration, the count and volume of red and white cells and the sticky cells that prevent bleeding - platelets, in over 14,000 individuals from the UK and Germany. They uncovered 22 regions of the human genome implicated in the development of these blood cells. Of the 22 regions, 15 had not previously been identified.

The study represents the first genome-wide association of blood measurements to be completed in cohorts with large sample sizes.

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Historical Data Shows Vaccines are Not what Saved Us

With all of the hype surrounding the H1N1 swine flu virus lately, everyone is very concerned with the safety and effectiveness of vaccines, and rightly so. This is a very important question that we must all ask ourselves and find out what the truth is. As the debate rages on an even more important question has rarely been asked. Do vaccines even protect you from the viruses and illnesses that they claim to?

If you only get your news and information from mainstream news and educational sources, then the question about whether vaccines are effective is never even raised. This lack of discussion give the perception that they are so effective that only a crazy or ignorant person would even think otherwise. Of course that is the perception that they are trying to get across to you, but that is far from the truth.

In fact if you take a look at some of the historical facts on the effectiveness of vaccines you will begin to see that not only did they too often not protect people from the very diseases that they claimed to but they actually caused outbreaks of those same diseases they were hyped to prevent.

Bulb

CSPI's "Top 10 Risky Foods" List Gets It Wrong: We Need More Leafy Greens, Not Less

This week, the CSPI released a "risky foods" list aiming to reveal the top ten riskiest foods responsible for most food-borne illnesses. Number one on the list is "leafy greens." Does this mean people should stop eating leafy greens? Of course not: The list itself is flawed from the very start.

There's nothing inherently "risky" about leafy greens. There has never been a single food-borne illness caused by a leafy green. What causes food-borne illnesses are the bacteria that get onto the leafy greens. Putting the focus on the food item itself is not only scientifically inaccurate; it's also misleading to consumers.

The real question is how do foods get contaminated with e.coli? And that answer involves the growing and processing of those foods. Foods that are grown near factory animal farms are far more likely to be contaminated with e.coli than those grown in more natural settings. Foods grown using methods of biodynamic gardening are far more likely to be free from e.coli than those grown as monoculture crops.