Health & WellnessS


Life Preserver

Massage Chair Therapy Help Relieve Fibromyalgia Symptoms

Fibromyalgia or FMS is a condition that is characterized by varying degrees of muscle aches and general body pain. The pain can range from mild stiffness to severe pain. The pain can be widespread affecting the muscles, ligaments, joints and tendons. Your health care professional may recommend varying treatments depending on the situation. Many fibromyalgia patients are turning to massage chairs to help relieve aches and pains.

Health

Brain-behavior Disconnect In Cocaine Addiction

Image
© DOE/Brookhaven National LaboratoryDuring an emotionally salient task, fMRI scans of cocaine-addicted individuals (bottom) showed stronger deactivation in the anterior cingulate cortex compared with scans of healthy controls (top). This deactivation suggests that this region may have been trying to "tune out" emotional stimuli, such as craving.
Parts of the brain involved in monitoring behaviors and emotions show different levels of activity in cocaine users relative to non-drug users, even when both groups perform equally well on a psychological test. These results - from a brain-imaging study conducted at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory and published online the week of May 25, 2009, by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - suggest that such impairments may underlie addictive vulnerability, and that treatments aimed at improving these functions could help addicted individuals resist drugs.

"Many studies have found decreased brain activity in drug-addicted individuals relative to healthy control subjects during psychological tests," said lead author Rita Goldstein, a psychologist at Brookhaven Lab. "But it's never been clear if these differences were due to varying levels of interest or ability between the two groups. This is the first study to look at two groups matched for performance and interest - and we still see dramatic differences in the brain regions that play a very significant role in the ability to monitor behavior and regulate emotion, which are both important to resisting drug use.

Bad Guys

FDA Relied Heavily on BPA Lobby

bottles
© unknown
Warning: Chemicals in the packaging, surfaces or contents of many products may cause long-term health effects. A decade ago, the government promised to test these chemicals. It still hasn't.

As federal regulators hold fast to their claim that a chemical in baby bottles is safe, e-mails obtained by the Journal Sentinel show that they relied on chemical industry lobbyists to examine bisphenol A's risks, track legislation to ban it and even monitor press coverage.

In one instance, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's deputy director sought information from the BPA industry's chief lobbyist to discredit a Japanese study that found it caused miscarriages in workers who were exposed to it. This was before government scientists even had a chance to review the study.

"I'd like to get information together that our chemists could look at to determine if there are problems with that data in advance of possibly reviewing the study," Mitchell Cheeseman, deputy director of the FDA's center for food safety and applied nutrition, said in an e-mail seeking advice from Steven Hentges, executive director of the trade association's BPA group.

The FDA relied on two studies - both paid for by chemical makers - to form the framework of its draft review declaring BPA to be safe.

Bell

How High Fructose Corn Syrup Damages Your Body

Image
© unknown
Drinking high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), the main ingredient in most soft drinks throughout the world, increases your triglyceride levels and your LDL (bad) cholesterol. These effects only occurred in the study participants who drank fructose -- not glucose.

Red Flag

Flashback Caffeine Experts Call for Warning Labels for Energy Drinks

Image
Scientists who have spent decades researching the effects of caffeine have stated that a slew of caffeinated energy drinks now on the market should carry prominent labels that note caffeine doses and warn of potential health risks for consumers.

Some energy drinks contain the equivalent caffeine of 14 cans of Coca-Cola, yet the amounts are often unlabeled, and few include warnings about the potential health risks of caffeine intoxication.

Caffeine intoxication is marked by nervousness, anxiety, restlessness, insomnia, gastrointestinal upset, tremors, rapid heartbeats (tachycardia), psychomotor agitation (restlessness and pacing) and in rare cases, death.

Alarm Clock

Speech of Ron Paul, Introducing the Parental Consent Act

Rep. Ron Paul has introduced the Parental Consent Act to protect families from mandatory "mental health screening" -- a thinly-veiled attempt by Big Pharma to drug expectant mothers and new moms with dangerous psychiatric drugs.

Pills

Red Bull energy drink tests positive for excessive levels of cocaine

Image
© Unknown
Six German states have taken Red Bull Cola energy drinks off the shelves after it tested positive for traces of cocaine.

The ban started after routine food safety tests conducted by authorities in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia found 0.5 micrograms of coca leaf extracts per liter in the drink.

According to the analysis, each can of the drink should contain 0.13 micrograms of cocaine, which does not pose a serious health threat. One has to drink 12,000 liters of Red Bull Cola to feel the negative affects. However, the variation from the analysis was enough to cause concern.

Family

The Depression Test

By screening all teens, doctors hope to identify those with mental disorders

Image
© By Susan Biddle For The Washington Post Mathy Milling Downing, left, was alarmed when a mental health test was suggested for her daughter Caroline, right, after the suicide of Caroline's sister.
Soon after her sister committed suicide, Caroline Downing started doing poorly at school. During math tests she would freeze up, and she found her mind wandering constantly. Officials at St. Andrew's Episcopal School in Potomac gently suggested that the high school sophomore get a mental health screening.

The idea of a psychiatric evaluation sent chills down the spine of Caroline's mother, Mathy Milling Downing, who believed that her younger daughter, Candace, had committed suicide because of an adverse reaction linked to a psychiatric drug -- the antidepressant Zoloft. Shortly after Candace's death, the Food and Drug Administration placed black-box warnings on several antidepressants to say they elevated suicidal thinking among some children. If Caroline were going to get the same kind of mental health care as Candace, Downing wanted no part of it.

Heart

Zinc and Selenium are the Minerals that Fight Breast Cancer

Any woman wanting to avoid breast cancer or its recurrence needs to be aware of the real risk factors. These are not the factors you hear about from the typical oncologist who is interested in pushing drugs. Imbalances in the body are the real risk factors that explain why women get breast cancer, not lack of drugs. The only way to avoid cancer or its recurrence is to address these imbalances. Two minerals, zinc and selenium, are key in maintaining balance in the body and keeping cancer away. Recent research has added to the pile of data underscoring the importance of these minerals in keeping women cancer-free.

Attention

Exactly What is the New Sweetener Erythritol?

Image
If you look at the ingredients of VitaminWater 10 (owned by Coca Cola), you might be pleased to see that it contains the natural sweetener stevia. However, you will also notice that it is loaded with crystalline fructose, sucrose, and a mysterious product called Erythritol.

Erythritol is a sugar alcohol, a sweetener that does not provide as many calories as sugar. But the reason that sugar alcohols provide fewer calories than sugar is because they are not completely absorbed into your body. For this reason, high intakes of foods containing sugar alcohols can lead to abdominal gas and diarrhea.