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Fred A. Kummerow, an early opponent of trans fats, dies at 102

Katie Hafner
The New York Times
Thu, 01 Jun 2017 07:04 UTC
Professor Kummerow
© NYT
In 1953, Professor Kummerow, at the time a professor of food technology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, set up his lab in the animal sciences building on campus.
Fred A. Kummerow, a German-born biochemist and lifelong contrarian whose nearly 50 years of advocacy led to a federal government ban on the use of trans-fatty acids in processed foods, a ruling that could prevent tens of thousands of premature deaths a year, died on Wednesday at his home in Urbana, Ill. He was 102.

His family announced his death. He had been a longtime professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Artificial trans fats — derived from the hydrogen-treated oils used to give margarine its easy-to-spread texture and prolong the shelf life of crackers, cookies, icing and hundreds of other staples in the American diet — were ruled unsafe by the Food and Drug Administration partly in response to a lawsuit that Professor Kummerow filed against the agency in 2013, two months shy of his 99th birthday. The ban, announced in 2015, goes into effect in 2018.

He had been one of the first scientists to suggest a link between processed foods and heart disease. In the 1950s, while studying lipids at the university, he analyzed diseased arteries from about two dozen people who had died of heart attacks and discovered that the vessels were filled with trans fats.

Comment: Trans fat policy responsible for the deaths of millions

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Alarm Clock

Poor sleep and the link to air pollution

Dr. Mercola
mercola.com
Thu, 08 Jun 2017 16:40 UTC
sleep deprivation
© Thanasis Zovoilis/Getty
If you're among the 35 percent of U.S. adults who are not getting the recommended seven hours of sleep each night,1 a silent intruder in your bedroom could be to blame: air pollution. With well-known adverse effects on your heart and lung health, research presented at the American Thoracic Society (ATS) 2017 International Conference suggests poor air quality may also disrupt your sleep.2

The study looked closely at the effects of two widespread pollutants, nitrogen dioxide (NO2), which is traffic-related air pollution, and PM2.5, or fine-particle pollution, which is less than 2.5 micrometers in size and is responsible for reduced visibility. Both of the pollutants had an influence on study participants' sleep efficiency, which is a measure of the time spent actually sleeping as opposed to lying in bed awake.

In fact, the people in the top quarter of NO2 exposure were 60 percent more likely to have low sleep efficiency over a five-year period compared to those in the lowest quarter. Among those exposed to the highest levels of fine-particle pollution, there was a 50 percent increased likelihood of low sleep efficiency.

The researchers suggested high air pollution levels may also lead to acute sleep effects after short-term exposures, but they did not have adequate data to study the potential connection. Lead study author Dr. Martha E. Billings, assistant professor of medicine at the University of Washington, said in a press release:3
"We thought an effect was likely given that air pollution causes upper airway irritation, swelling and congestion, and may also affect the central nervous system and brain areas that control breathing patterns and sleep ... These new findings indicate the possibility that commonly experienced levels of air pollution not only affect heart and lung disease, but also sleep quality. Improving air quality may be one way to enhance sleep health and perhaps reduce health disparities."
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Pills

Unprecedented! FDA calls for removal of opioid drug from market after abuse leads to serious outbreak of HIV and hepatitis C


RT
Fri, 09 Jun 2017 16:39 UTC
Opana ER, oxymorphone hydrochloride

Abuse of reformulated Opana ER by injection has been linked to a "serious outbreak" of HIV and hepatitis C.
In an unprecedented move, the US Food and Drug Administration has requested a drugmaker withdraw an opioid pain medicine from the market due to its potential for abuse. The agency cited the current "opioid epidemic" as a catalyst for the move.

The FDA has targeted the reformulated version of Opana ER, or oxymorphone hydrochloride, for market removal, calling on its manufacturer, Ireland-based Endo Pharmaceuticals, to take voluntary steps to do so.

If Endo chooses not to withdraw Opana ER ‒ first approved by the FDA in 2006 - the federal agency said it would take steps to rescind its approval of the drug.
"We are facing an opioid epidemic ‒ a public health crisis, and we must take all necessary steps to reduce the scope of opioid misuse and abuse,"said FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb.

Comment: The longstanding cozy relationship between the FDA and BigPharma is the reason that the FDA rarely takes action to rescind approval for drugs until millions have died or been seriously injured - profits always take precedence over the health and well-being of the populace.

How the US government's collusion with Big Pharma is driving the opioid epidemic

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Health

CBD oil effective in treating symptoms of schizophrenia

Brandon Turbeville
Natural Blaze
Thu, 08 Jun 2017 15:43 UTC
cbd oil
As the DEA continues to label marijuana and even the non-psychoactive cannabidiol oil (CBD) as being the same as heroin in terms of its health effects, addictive qualities and side effects, the real world also continues to exist outside of the walls of Washington, D.C. and mindless drug war proponents.

As jackboots continue to march on so does science and public opinion. Nearly every day a new marijuana-related potential cure appears on the scene. Whether its cancer or multiple sclerosis, the humble plant is offering to cure and relieve a plethora of diseases if the police state and bureaucrats would just get the hell out of the way.

The latest in a long line of diseases that could potentially be cured by marijuana is schizophrenia. Although affecting only about 1.1 percent of the American population, that small percentage translate to about 3.5 million people.

The symptoms of schizophrenia range from life-disrupting to completely debilitating. Cognitive symptoms are a major symptom of schizophrenia that involve comprehension, concentration and decision making.
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Health

Most home blood pressure monitors give inaccurate readings

April McCarthy
Prevent Disease
Thu, 08 Jun 2017 15:33 UTC
blood pressure reading
Seventy per cent of readings from home blood pressure monitors are unacceptably inaccurate, which could cause serious implications for people who rely on them to make informed health decisions, new UAlberta research reveals.
"High blood pressure is the number one cause of death and disability in the world," said medical researcher Jennifer Ringrose, who led the research study. "Monitoring for and treating hypertension can decrease the consequences of this disease. We need to make sure that home blood pressure readings are accurate."
Ringrose and her team tested dozens of home monitors and found they weren't accurate within five mmHg about 70 per cent of the time. The devices were off the mark by 10 mmHg about 30 per cent of the time.

The findings are extremely relevant given millions of patients are asked to monitor their blood pressure through a device at home and report the results back to their doctor.
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Attention

Naled pesticide used to fight Zika tied to developmental delays in Chinese babies

Jenny Staletovich
Miami Herald
Thu, 08 Jun 2017 21:08 UTC
zika protest
© C.M. Guerrero
Last September, over 100 protesters demonstrated on the steps of Miami Beach City Hall against the use of the pesticide Naled being sprayed in Miami Beach to combat Zika. A new study has linked the pesticide to deficits in motor functions in Chinese babies.
The pesticide widely used to fight Zika-carrying mosquitoes in Florida and across the nation has been linked to deficits in motor functions in Chinese babies, according to a new study.

The study, whose authors say it is the first to examine real-world exposure to naled outside workplace accidents or lab experiments, used cord blood from 237 mothers who gave birth to healthy babies at a hospital in southeast China between 2008 and 2011. At six weeks, the babies displayed no problems. But at nine months, the babies suffered from slight problems with coordination, movement and other motor functions.

The University of Michigan study was published in the peer-reviewed journal Environment International on Thursday.

While the study provided only a close snapshot of a particular group of mothers, the authors say it suggests the need to take a closer look at using naled to fight mosquitoes, particularly since problems surfaced at lower exposure levels than previous studies.

"Just because changes are small, that doesn't mean they should be discounted," said lead author Monica Silver. "We really need to know more about it."
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Pills

The opioid crisis is changing how doctors think about pain

Sarah Kliff
Vox
Thu, 08 Jun 2017 13:04 UTC
painkillers pharmaceuticals
This town on the eastern border of Kentucky has 3,150 residents, one hotel, one gas station, one fire station — and about 50 opiate overdoses each month.

On the first weekend of each month, when public benefits like disability get paid out, the local fire chief estimates the city sees about half a million dollars in drug sales. The area is poor — 29 percent of county residents live in poverty, and, amid the retreat of the coal industry, the unemployment rate was 12.2 percent when I visited last August— and those selling pills are not always who you'd expect.

"Elderly folks who depend on blood pressure medications, who can't afford them, they're selling their [painkillers] to get money to buy their blood pressure drug," Williamson fire chief Joey Carey told me when I visited Williamson. "The opioids are still $5 or $10 copays. They can turn around and sell those pills for $5 or $10 each."

Opioids are everywhere in Williamson, because chronic pain is everywhere in Williamson.

Comment: Pain is a sign or signal that something is not right within the body. To focus on getting rid of the pain without addressing the root cause of it hasn't been a very good approach, but to ignore it and tell people to learn to live with pain, while possibly better in certain respects, is not the best approach either. Until doctors can move beyond the pharmaceutical paradigm currently strangling Western medicine, it's likely that chronic pain sufferers will never find long lasting relief. Here are some non-pharmaceutical approaches to dealing with or healing the causes of chronic pain:

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No Entry

The nightmare that is diet soda

Dr. Mercola
mercola.com
Wed, 07 Jun 2017 13:03 UTC
diet sodas
At the peak of its popularity in 2005, 3 billion cases of diet soda were sold in one year. This beverage has since fallen out of favor, falling by 27 percent (or 834 million cases) as of 2016. Still, diet soda still makes up 25 percent of the carbonated beverages sold in the U.S.1 (by volume), which means many Americans are still partaking — undoubtedly many of them because they believe they're making a healthier choice than regular soda.

This — the idea that diet soda is in any way healthy — is one of the biggest prevailing myths in the nutrition realm today. If you're one of the nearly half of U.S. adults who consume artificial sweeteners, mostly in the form of diet soda, daily (even one-quarter of kids do so as well),2 it's important you're let in on the truth: If you drink a lot of diet soda, you're putting your health at risk.

What Are the Health Risks of Diet Soda?

A number of studies have been published recently that cast serious doubt on the safety of drinking diet soda. The health risks revealed include:

Stroke and Dementia

Drinking one artificially sweetened beverage a day may increase your risk of stroke and dementia by three-fold compared to drinking less than one a week.3 Even drinking one to six artificially sweetened beverages a week was linked to a 2.6 greater risk of stroke compared to not drinking any.

A 2012 study similarly found that people who drank diet soft drinks daily were 43 percent more likely to have suffered a vascular event, including a stroke.4 This significant association persisted even after controlling for other factors that could increase the risk, such as smoking, physical activity levels, alcohol consumption, diabetes, heart disease, dietary factors and more.
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Bullseye

AI machine can identify autism in babies as young as 6 months - study


RT
Wed, 07 Jun 2017 22:33 UTC
Autism
© UNC-Chapel Hill / YouTube
A brain-mapping AI could soon be used to identify infants most at risk of developing autism, before the symptoms even appear.

New research published in the journal Science Translational Medicine found that "autism imaging," a scan that can pinpoint signs of the condition in the brain, may one day lead to diagnoses in children as young as six months.

"The more we understand about the brain before symptoms appear, the better prepared we will be to help children and their families,"said senior author Joseph Piven, Professor of Psychiatry at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine.

During the study, sleeping babies were placed in an MRI machine where their neural activity was monitored across more than 200 regions of the brain. Researchers then used the MRI data to map brain pathways thought to facilitate core skills and behaviors autism is known to affect - namely language, repetitive actions and social behavior.

Using this map, Piven and his team created an AI capable of narrowing down the neural connections central to the development of autism in children between six months and age 2.

Comment: See also:

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Ambulance

Trans fat policy responsible for the deaths of millions

Dr. Mercola
mercola.com
Wed, 07 Jun 2017 12:59 UTC
frying corn dogs
For the past six decades, saturated fats and cholesterol have been wrongly vilified as the central culprit of heart disease, stroke and peripheral vascular disease. However, research has demonstrated that it's actually sugar, refined carbohydrates, trans fats and processed vegetable oils found in many processed foods that are the real enemy.

In the decades saturated fats were demonized, the food industry responded by replacing saturated fats with more shelf-stable trans fats and a new market of low-fat (high-sugar) foods was born.

Americans' health has plummeted ever since, and millions have been prematurely killed by this mistake. Making matters worse, genetically engineered soy oil, which is a major source of trans fat, can oxidize inside your body, thereby causing damage to both your heart and your brain.

One of the first articles published exonerating saturated fats was in 1957 by Dr. Fred Kummerow,1 who has now spent eight decades absorbed in the science of lipids and heart disease. In 2013, Kummerow sued the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for not withdrawing trans fats from the market.2 It was Kummerow's lifetime work that revealed the dangers of trans fat and oxidized cholesterol and the relationship to heart disease.

Not surprisingly, trans fat is also linked to dementia as the arterial changes that occur in the heart muscle also occur in the brain, triggering neurological damage. Recent research has once again demonstrated the dangers to health and a great financial burden that eating a diet with trans fat has placed on the American public.
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