The following is a comprehensive (but not complete) list of foods that do contain gluten or that may contain it. This list can be used as a guideline for those with gluten intolerance or celiac disease. Many items listed below are traditionally considered safe. However; it should be noted that many of the traditionally safe grains have been studied to cause and to contribute to damage yet they continue to be recommended by the gluten free food industry. The difference between a traditional gluten free diet and the TRUE gluten free diet can be found in the following video tutorial

Researchers from the University of Southern Denmark have discovered that the skin is capable of communicating with the liver. The discovery has surprised the scientists, and they say that it may help our understanding of how skin diseases can affect the rest of the body.

Professor Susanne Mandrup and her research group in collaboration with Nils Færgeman's research group at the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Southern Denmark was actually studying something completely different when they made the groundbreaking discovery: That the skin, which is the body's largest organ, can "talk" to the liver.

"We have showed that the skin affects the metabolism in the liver, and that is quite a surprise", say Susanne Mandrup and Ditte Neess, a former student in the Mandrup research group and now laboratory manager in Professor Nils Færgeman's group.

The phenomenon was observed in the researcher's laboratory mice. The Mandrup and Færgeman groups work with so-called knock-out mice, in which a specific fat binding protein called acyl CoA binding protein has been removed (knocked out). Some knock-out mice produced by the researchers had a strange greasy fur, and they had difficulties being weaned from their mother. In the weaning period they gained less weight and showed a failure to thrive. Analyses also showed that the mice accumulated fat in the liver at weaning.

The statin madness infecting the greater part of the tribe of physicians has finally reached out and touched me personally.

We all hear horror stories about all kinds of occurrences, but, although we feel empathy for the victims, we don't truly understand until it happens to us directly.

I've railed in numerous posts and to anyone who would stand and listen to me about the idiocy of prescribing statins to the vast majority of those they're prescribed for. I read comments from female readers of this blog telling me how their doctors are insisting they go on statins despite there not being any evidence that statins provide any benefit to women. I hear about young men with no history of heart disease but minimally elevated cholesterol levels being put on a statin with the understanding that they need to be on this drug for life. This despite there not being any evidence that statins prolong the lives of those young men who take them.

Based on these examples and a thousand others, I've become convinced that prescribing statins is a reflex action for many doctors. And I have to shake my head because these are not benign drugs. In fact, they come with a contingent of fairly serious side effects, many of which can last long after the drugs have been discontinued.

But only now do I truly understand how dismally, unthinkably, reflexively stupid some doctors can be.

Here's what happened.

My father, who is almost 86 years old, has been afflicted with a serious degenerative neuromuscular disease for many years. At this point, he is virtually totally paralyzed. He can move his left arm at the elbow maybe two inches, but that's it. He can breathe, chew and talk, though his formerly deep voice is now barely a whisper due to the partial paralysis of his vocal cords. He requires round the clock care, which my sister and a cadre of paid caregivers provide. When we can, MD and I go to Michigan to do our turn of waking up every three hours during the night to turn him.

The number of reported cases of measles in the United States this year is nearly three times the annual average, federal health officials said on Thursday, highlighting the continued threat of the disease 50 years after development of a vaccine.

There have been 175 measles cases so far in 2013, compared with the typical national average of about 60 cases a year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

The federal health agency said home-grown measles were eliminated in the United States in 2000, but the disease has continued to be carried into the country from people who have traveled abroad.

The CDC said 172 of the 175 U.S. cases this year involved patients who were infected overseas or caught the disease from someone who had traveled internationally. The source of the other three infections remains unknown, the agency said.

"A measles outbreak anywhere is a risk everywhere," CDC Director Tom Frieden said. "The steady arrival of measles in the United States is a constant reminder that deadly diseases are testing our health security every day."

It may actually be a way to promote a Monsanto GMO product. Action Alert!

You may have already heard the news: the FDA has banned trans fats! Well, sort of.

Under the FDA's proposed rule, trans fat itself is not banned. Instead, the ban is on the major source of trans fats in processed food - partially hydrogenated oils (PHOs). PHOs are artificial trans fats, created via the process of adding hydrogen to vegetable oils in order to make them semi-solid. Naturally occurring trans fat is found in some meat and dairy including beef, lamb and, in small amounts, butter. Many margarines, on the other hand, are made with PHOs and therefore contain high levels of artificial trans fats. Increasingly, margarines are switching to palm oils (which are semi-solid at room temperature and solid if refrigerated) to eliminate PHOs.

It's important to note that since this is a proposed rule, and not a final one, there's still a chance it could be changed or dropped. In the rule, the FDA mentions that the agency is open to alternate approaches to addressing PHOs in food, such as the setting of acceptable trans fat threshold levels.

Food poverty in the UK has now become such a big problem that it should be seen as a "public health emergency", a group of health experts says.

In a letter to the British Medical Journal, six leading public health figures warned poor nutrition could lead to a host of problems. It comes amid reports that people are struggling to feed themselves.

The UK Red Cross has started asking for food donations for the first time since World War Two.

And in October the Trussell Trust, which runs 400 food banks, said the numbers of people it was helping had tripled to 350,000 in the past year.

Today, smartphones are central to college students' lives, keeping them constantly connected with friends, family and the Internet. Students' cell phones are rarely out of reach whether the setting is a college classroom, library, recreational center, cafeteria or dorm room. As cell phone use continues to increase, it is worth considering whether use of the device is related to measurable outcomes important for student success, such as academic performance, anxiety and happiness.

Kent State University researchers Andrew Lepp, Ph.D., Jacob Barkley, Ph.D., and Aryn Karpinski, Ph.D., all faculty members in the university's College of Education, Health and Human Services, surveyed more than 500 university students.

Daily cell phone use was recorded along with a clinical measure of anxiety and each student's level of satisfaction with their own life, or in other words happiness. Finally, all participants allowed the researchers to access their official university records in order to retrieve their actual, cumulative college grade point average (GPA).

All students surveyed were undergraduate students and were equally distributed by class (freshman, sophomore, junior and senior). In addition, 82 different, self-reported majors were represented.

Controversial Toronto Mayor Rob Ford slammed President Obama's signature healthcare law during an appearance on a Washington, D.C., sports radio talk show Thursday.

"I don't believe in all this public-funded health care because we gotta pay for it," Ford told WJFK's "The Sports Junkies."

Ford said that in Canada, the country "can't afford" their universal health coverage.

"What you guys are doing down there, I just, I can't get my head around it because it's costing a fortune, and I don't know where you guys are going to find the money, except the taxpayers pockets," he continued.

"And I think people are taxed to death, and I don't mind two-tier healthcare; if you want healthcare, you pay for it. I understand that. And we have general healthcare up here, or OHIP we call it, but, you know, it's gonna cost a fortune for you guys to put in this ObamaCare, and I just don't see how the people are going to be able to afford it, to tell you the truth."

Ford added that he personally liked Obama but that he did not "like his politics."

Wikipedia defines the phrase lipstick on a pig as "a rhetorical expression, used to convey the message that making superficial or cosmetic changes is a futile attempt to disguise the true nature of a product." Which brings us to yet another of psychiatry's futile attempts at medical legitimacy...

Just when you thought psychiatric diagnosing couldn't get any nuttier, the Grand Poobahs of we-determine-acceptable-behavior are resorting to relying on a computer test that reportedly "measures motion and analyzes shifts in attention state to give a clear picture of ADHD symptoms."

Remarkably, in this latest attempt to find any objectivity in an ADHD diagnosis, psychiatrists actually reinforce the fact that there is no science to support the alleged mental disorder.

Here's how the ADHD computer allegedly "works." The Pearson, Llc., Quotient device is a computer, equipped with infrared motion-tracking equipment (head and leg straps) that reportedly measures the test-takers movements against a database of results of "real" ADHD patients. Numerous variations of star-shaped images intermittently flash on the screen, requiring the test subject to make the appropriate choice by hitting the space bar. The entire process lasts no longer than 20 minutes and too much recorded movement could justify an ADHD diagnosis.

Imagining a world where previously conquered illnesses - most profoundly the bubonic plague - reemerged as a major health issue could be horrifying for some, and unfortunately, it could one day become a reality, as bacteria develop stronger resistance to antibiotics. Thankfully, there's hope in sight: In a recently published study, researchers describe the discovery of a protein that could kill these so-called superbugs and usher in a new era of antibiotic treatments.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a report in September, bringing attention to three particularly antibiotic-resistant bacteria: Clostridium difficile, Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae, and Neisseria gonorrheae. In the report, the CDC emphasized the importance of reducing antibiotic misuse or overuse - either one allows allows bacteria to become increasingly resistant, and these three strains are already resistant to most, if not all, antibiotics. Other bacteria that were labeled as a threat, albeit not as urgent, included various strains of Salmonella, Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus pneumonia, and tuberculosis.

The October breakout of Salmonella Heidelberg offers a perfect example of a real-world scenario, highlighting the urgency of developing new antibiotics, and reducing the chances of current antibiotics becoming obsolete. Seven strains of the bacteria, which was traced back to three Foster Farms processing plants in California, sickened 389 people, and caused 40 percent of them to be hospitalized - 20 percent more than a typical Salmonella outbreak, Barbara Reynolds, a CDC spokeswoman, told USA Today. The reason for so many hospitalizations: antibiotic resistance.