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US: Sen. DeMint Chooses Ideology Over Doctor's Promising Device

James Rosen
McClatchy Newspapers
Wed, 23 Mar 2011 00:00 UTC
Image
© Kim Kim Foster-Tobin/The State
Dr. David Cull tried to get help from his hometown senator, but was rebuffed.
The good doctor was frustrated.

Dr. David Cull, a prominent vascular surgeon in Greenville, had invented a small valve system that, if it works, could spare 300,000 dialysis patients across the country enormous suffering and save U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars.

But Cull's hometown senator, Jim DeMint, would not write a letter supporting the surgeon's application for a federal grant under the landmark health care bill that President Barack Obama signed into law a year ago today.

A hard-core conservative with a growing national following, DeMint vowed in 2009 to make health care Obama's "Waterloo" and is leading Republican efforts in Congress to repeal or deny funding to the law, designed to provide medical coverage to 31 million uninsured Americans.

Backing a grant application under the law - even for a constituent who lives in the same Upstate town as DeMint - would leave the senator open to charges of hypocrisy, staffers say.
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Stop

U.S. halts Japan food imports, Tokyo water contaminated

Mayumi Negishi and Kazunori Takada
Reuters
Wed, 23 Mar 2011 04:01 UTC
Image
© Reuters
A vendor arranges vegetables at a greengrocery in the Togoshi Ginza in Tokyo
Japanese authorities advised against allowing infants to drink tap water in Tokyo due to raised radiation levels and the United States became the first nation to block some food imports from Japan.

The crisis at the tsunami-smashed nuclear power plant, 250 km (150 miles) north of the Japanese capital, appeared far from over with workers attempting to gain control ordered to leave the site after black smoke began rising from one of its six reactors.

The plant was crippled by a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami on March 11. Some 23,000 people have been left dead or missing.

Tokyo authorities said water at a purification plant for the capital of 13 million people had 210 becquerels of radioactive iodine -- more than twice the safety level for infants.

"This is without doubt, an effect of the Fukushima Daiichi plant," a Tokyo metropolitan government official said, referring to the nuclear power station.

Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara, however, said the radiation level posed no immediate health risk and water could still be used.

"But for infants under age one, I would like them to refrain from using tap water to dilute baby formula," he said.

International concerns about food safety are growing, with the United States the latest to impose controls. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it was stopping imports of milk, vegetable and fruit from four prefectures in the vicinity of the crippled nuclear plant.
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Beaker

Tokyo says radiation in tap water above limit


The Associated Press
Tue, 22 Mar 2011 23:46 UTC
Tokyo Water Bureau officials say levels of radioactive iodine in some city tap water is two times the recommended limit for infants.

The officials told reporters Wednesday that a water treatment center in downtown Tokyo that supplies much of the city's tap water found that some water contained 210 becquerels per liter of iodine 131.

They said the limit for consumption of iodine 131 for infants is 100 becquerels per liter. They recommended that babies not be given tap water, although they said the water is not an immediate health risk for adults.

This is a breaking news update. AP's earlier story is below.
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Info

Ghee or Clarified Butter: A Good Source of Saturated Fat

Sonal Srivastava
Times of India
Mon, 21 Mar 2011 16:42 UTC
Image

Ghee-Clarified Butter
Ghee is the vedic super food, declares Sandeep Agarwal, a ghee manufacturer and distributor from New Jersey, USA. Speaking at a recently-held conference on ayurveda and yoga in Rishikesh, he made a strong case for using ghee made from grass-fed cow's milk in everyday cooking. "It is a good source of fat-soluble vitamins. It has essential fatty acids and is also rich in saturated fat needed by growing children," he explains.

For years, clarified butter has been a part of traditional Indian cuisine but this virtuous cooking medium ran out of favor with fitness experts and nutrition specialists as it is high in saturated fat and cholesterol and often the cause of expanding waistlines and obesity.

However, new trends are now emerging, in a way, reinventing tradition. Ayurveda experts are backing ghee for its vitamins, longer shelf-life and immunity-boosting qualities.

Comment: The article states 'fitness experts and nutrition specialists state ghee is high in saturated fat and cholesterol and is often the cause of expanding waistlines and obesity.' Read the following article to understand how we have been lied to about the benefits of saturated fats: The Big Lie: "Saturated Fats Are Bad For You" - from the article:
Nutritionally I can't think of a bigger lie than the one claiming that fats in general and saturated fats in particular are bad for us. This lie is so deeply embedded in the minds of most that you couldn't blow it out with a stick of dynamite. Especially in the minds of academics, and more especially in the minds of most dietitians. Not all, but most. Nutritionally, it is truly the Big Lie.
Saturated Fats benefit overall health and wellness, for more information on the health benefits of saturated fats read the following articles:

7 Reasons to Eat More Saturated Fat
Saturated Fat is Good for You
Higher saturated fat intakes found to be associated with a reduced risk of dying from cardiovascular disease
Saturated Fat and Heart Disease
What if It's All Been a Big Fat Lie?
Why high fat diets are not fattening
Wrongly Convicted? The Case for Saturated Fat

From the article:
Speaking at a press conference this month in Washington, D.C. sponsored by the Healthy Nation Coalition and the Weston A. Price Foundation, Ms. Morell said that for the past 60 or 70 years, saturated fats have been blamed for clogging arteries, and for causing heart disease, diabetes and even multiple sclerosis. Ms. Morell says that none of these accusations is based on sound science. On the other hand, she points out the critical roles that saturated fats play in the body.

In particular, she cites the benefits of saturated fats:
  • Make up 50% of cell membranes.
  • Help the body put calcium in the bones.
  • Lower Lp(a), a marker for heart disease.
  • Are the preferred food for the heart.
  • Protect the liver from alcohol and other poisons.
  • Are required for lung and kidney function.
  • Enhance the immune system.
  • Work together with essential fatty acids.
  • Support the body's detoxification mechanisms


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Magic Wand

Spinal cord processes information just like areas of the brain


Queen's University
Tue, 22 Mar 2011 14:40 UTC
Image
© Unknown
Patrick Stroman is working to map the function and information processing of the spinal cord.
Patrick Stroman's work mapping the function and information processing of the spinal cord could improve treatment for spinal cord injuries.

"Basic physiology books describe the spinal cord as a relay system, but it's part of the central nervous system and processes information just like parts of the brain do," explains Dr. Stroman, director of the Queen's MRI Facility and Canada Research Chair in Imaging Physics.

Dr. Stroman's research is directed at precisely mapping the areas above and below a spinal cord injury in order to better determine the precise nature of an injury and the effectiveness of subsequent treatment. When medical research has advanced to a point where clinicians are able to bridge an injury on a spinal cord, Dr. Stroman's spinal mapping technique will be key in accurately pinpointing the injury to be bridged.

The technique involves capturing multiple images of the spinal cord using a conventional MRI system. The image capturing is repeated every few seconds over several minutes. During the imaging temperature sensations on the skin are varied allowing areas of the spinal cord that respond to the temperature changes to be detected in the MRI.
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Heart

The Exercise Mistake Proven to Damage Your Heart

Dr. Mercola
Mercola.com
Tue, 22 Mar 2011 09:13 UTC
Long Distance Runner
© Thomas Northcut / Photodisk / Thinkstock

Not long ago, researchers studied the heart health of a group of very fit older athletes -- men who had been part of a national or Olympic team in distance running or rowing, and runners who had completed at least a hundred marathons. The results were unsettling -- half of these lifelong athletes showed evidence of heart muscle scarring.

The affected men were invariably the ones who had gone through the longest, hardest training. And now a new study, this time in laboratory rats, provides solid evidence of a direct link between certain kinds of prolonged exercise and heart damage -- scarring and structural changes, similar to those seen in the human endurance athletes.

The research effectively shows that years of strenuous cardiovascular exercise can damage your heart.

According to the New York Times:
"Unfortunately, it remains impossible, at the moment, to predict just what that threshold is for any given person, and which athletes might be most vulnerable to heart problems as a result of excessive exercise".
Sources:

New York Times March 9, 2011

The Journal of Applied Physiology February 17, 2011 [Epub Ahead of Print]

Circulation 2011;123:13-22

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Nuke

Health Canada monitoring stations detect 'minuscule' increase in radiation

Rebekah Funk
The Canadian Press
Mon, 21 Mar 2011 22:04 UTC
Health Canada monitoring stations detected a "minuscule" increase in radiation levels along the B.C. coast Monday in the wake of the nuclear crisis in Japan.

Health spokesman Gary Holub said increased radiation levels were expected, and he stressed the increase posed no public health risk in Canada.

"As anticipated, the amount of radiation reaching Canada is so small that it would not pose a health risk to Canadians," Holub said in an email response to queries.

"Health Canada's radiation monitoring stations have detected a minuscule increase in radiation levels along the West Coast of Canada. This increase is a variation less than what we would see naturally when it rains."

Health Canada installed nine additional monitoring stations along the Pacific coast late last week, as public concerns persisted about possible radioactive drift from Japan making it thousands of kilometres across the ocean to North America.

Some nervous Canadians were trying to track down their own equipment to assess the threat.
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Nuke

Detoxify or Die: Natural Radiation Protection Therapies for Coping With the Fallout of the Fukushima Nuclear Meltdown

Gabriela Segura, M.D.
Sott.net
Fri, 18 Mar 2011 06:45 UTC
Foot-dragging in recognizing obvious problems and the resultant delays in preventing exposure and mitigating the effects lies at the door of nuclear power advocates more interested in preserving the status quo than in helping millions of innocent people who are suffering through no fault of their own. - Nesterenko, A. V., Nesterenko, V. B. and Yablokov, Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment.
Image
© AP/NTV
Smoke ascends from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant's Unit 3 on Monday 14 after a second hydrogen explosion.
We have had conflicting reports from mainstream news sources regarding the nuclear emergency in Fukushima, Japan. Some say that it is not nearly as bad as the Chernobyl catastrophe, others say that it will be much worse than Chernobyl. What are we to make of this? Who can we trust?

With the current state of affairs, I think it is reasonable enough to expect and prepare for the worst, hope for the best and take what comes. It is with this state of mind that I set out to review the available literature about accessible and alternative therapies in case of nuclear disasters as well as data about the Chernobyl catastrophe. What I found was shocking enough but know that there is also well-documented essential knowledge that can protect you and your loved ones.

This article includes an overview of the publication Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment which appeared in Annals of the New York Academy (2009). The authors - Alexey V. Nesterenko (Institute of Radiation Safety (BELRAD), Belarus) and Alexey V. Yablokov (Russian Academy of Sciences) along with Vassily B. Nesterenko - synthesized information from several thousand cited scientific papers and other materials, including successful and widely available natural therapies that worked. There are also other numerous studies about alternative effective treatments in case of radiation. It will give you a clear idea of what to expect and what you can do in case of a nuclear disaster in Japan.

This is a matter that concerns all of us as no country in the world is capable of providing complete protection from radiation for those living in affected areas and from eating locally grown foods that are contaminated with radiation.
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Sherlock

When 'Organic' Food Isn't Organic

Sherri Buri McDonald
The Register-Guard
Mon, 07 Mar 2011 12:57 UTC
Image
© The Register-Guard
As manufacturers change their products, labels may lag behind

Sales of organic foods have climbed for the past decade, outpacing the growth of their conventional counterparts, as consumers paid a premium for food they saw as safer, higher quality and more environmentally friendly.

But at the same time demand for organics was growing, some of the companies producing organic food were quietly reducing their use of organic ingredients. This happened for a variety of reasons, including rising commodity prices and, in some cases, new corporate parents strongly rooted in conventional food processing.

The switch from organic to non­organic ingredients hasn't always been apparent to customers - or even to the retailers selling them.

In the most recent case to come to light, many consumers across the country have been scooping Golden Temple granola from bulk bins and buying boxes of Peace Cereal thinking the products are made with mostly organic ingredients, when they haven't been for years, according to an organic foods industry watchdog group.
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Heart

Stress Tips: Calm Your Mind, Heal Your Body


Dr. Mark Hyman
Mon, 21 Mar 2011 11:55 UTC
wellness
© Unknown
When it comes to your health, there is one factor that is more important than almost any other...

If it is missing from your life, it causes or worsens 95 percent of all illness. It has been associated with dramatic reductions in disease and increased longevity.

And it is more important than cholesterol, blood sugar, blood pressure, or any other risk factor in determining whether you will live a long and healthy life. But it doesn't come in a pill, and it can't be found in a hospital or in your doctor's office.

What is this critical factor that determines so much about how healthy or how sick you are?

Your attitude, your social networks, your community, and your spiritual beliefs.

Put another way, the health of your mind and spirit and your sense of connection to your community has an immense impact on the health of your body. In fact, aside from eating breakfast, the biggest predictor of longevity is psychological resiliency - being able to roll with the punches that life throws at us.

Comment: There is one proven technique that can assist you with reducing your stress, calming and focusing your mind, creating better links between body and mind and thus improving quality of life, increasing sense of connection with others in your community. It will help you to have improved overall health, a stronger immune system, better impulse control, reduced inflammation, etc. It will also help you to heal emotional wounds; anything that may hinder or prevent you from leading a healthy and fulfilling life.

The Éiriú Eolas technique grew out of research conducted by the Quantum Future Group under the direction of Laura Knight-Jadczyk and Gabriela Segura, M.D. The practice has been thoroughly researched and proven to work by the thousands of people who are already benefiting from this unique program. The effects are cumulative and results and benefits can be seen in only a very short time, sometimes after just one session!

There is a myriad of relaxation techniques out there, but not many of them can attest to having not only immediate effects, but also having a highly practical application. With Éiriú Eolas, there is no need to sit in special postures, or be present in a carefully prepared relaxing atmosphere. The strength of the program comes from its high adaptability to stressful conditions of the modern world. Anyone can do it, be it a student, sitting outside of a lecture hall before the exam, a mechanic needing a break from tackling problems all day, a businessman just before signing an important deal, a mother having to raise three children and worrying if she will have enough money to pay the mortgage, etc.

Visit the Éiriú Eolas site or participate on the forum to learn more about the scientific background of this program and then try it out for yourselves, free of charge.

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