On January second this year, in a heavily advertised special health-theme issue of People Magazine, Kraft announced a new campaign on Crystal Light, a sugarless powdered drink mix which can easily be poured into tap and bottled water drinks, besides tea and coffee. Crystal Light's ingredients include the artificial sweetener aspartame, under the trademark names of NutraSweet and Equal, besides citric acid and sodium citrate.

Crystal Light was first marketed in 1982 to "make drinking water more enjoyable," and much less caloric than fruit juices. Aspartame is also widely used as a sweetener, 200 times more than sugar, in tea and coffee, especially by the weight conscious.

It's already known that oxytocin exposure brings greater heart health -- but researchers have just found that oxytocin infusion reduces cell deaths in an injured heart and reduces certain inflammatory factors that can slow healing.

Other than going into labor, the number one means of acquiring the neuropeptide oxytocin, is through skin-to-skin contact with another human being -- simple touch and closeness. Contact with animals has some beneficial effect as well.

Oxytocin has a powerful effect on infants, but brings greater bonding and mental and physical health for everyone.

Source:

Basic Research in Cardiology (Epub ahead of print)

Abnormally high or low blood calcium levels are linked to an increased chance of premature death in non-dialysis kidney disease patients, according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Clinical Journal of the American Society Nephrology (CJASN). The findings indicate the potential importance of finding drugs or other treatments that maintain normal blood calcium levels in non-dialysis patients.

Patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) often have abnormally high or low blood calcium levels due to their compromised kidney function and the effects of commonly used medications. While abnormal calcium levels have been linked to higher premature death rates in dialysis patients, their effects in patients with earlier stages of CKD are less clear.

Many studies have linked cows' milk consumed by babies to subsequent diabetes, but some researchers still doubt that it causes the disease. The association is based on animal experiments, they note, or indirect evidence, such as studies in which parents of diabetic children try to recollect when their babies first started drinking milk-based formula.

Now, Finnish researchers have avoided the vagaries of poor recall by studying children from birth. In so doing, they have added to the case against cows' milk.

By monitoring babies in diabetes-prone families, the scientists find that infants getting formula that includes cows' milk are more likely later to develop the immune reactions associated with juvenile-onset, or type I, diabetes than are babies getting a substitute. The scientists reported the findings this week in San Diego at the 59th Annual Scientific Sessions of the American Diabetes Association.

Winter is a time for slowing down, pulling on layers and feeling cozy. With the arrival of cold weather we finally have an excuse to stay indoors, work on forgotten projects by a crackling fire and fill the house with baking aromas. But it can also be a time of overindulgence, holiday excess and stress. When that celebratory eggnog has found its way to your lips more consistently than your waistline would like or, somehow, once again, what started as one nibble has turned into an empty bowl where the spiced nuts once resided, you might start to think that a starvation diet is the best, or only, way to bring your body back into balance. Not so says the ancient healing system of Ayurveda. Essentially, a long, dark winter can throw our eating habits off balance and, in turn, create toxic turmoil within. This premise is a cornerstone of Ayurveda, which recognizes that nature's elements directly affect our state of being, with our diet being a crucial component.

Two Sanskrit words, "Ayu," which means life and "Veda," meaning knowledge of, literally come together to create Ayurveda, or the "Science of Life." This holistic Indian ideology, said to be the origin of all medical sciences, dates back about 5,000 years and began as a way to understand how human beings relate to nature. The practice often utilizes diet, herbs, acupuncture, yoga, and massage to maintain or regain balance and harmony within the body. According to Ayurvedic thinking, the five elements of air, ether (space), fire, water and earth are categorized into three patterns or "Doshas" that dictate our well-being. Depending upon our own specific tendencies, symptoms and environment, the three Doshas: Vata (air/ether), Pitta (fire) and Kapha (water/ earth) are said to mirror our unique imbalances and needs. Each one of these has its own characteristics and describes the main patterns of deficiency, heat, and excess that are said to be at the root of most disease. Ayurveda believes that we are all individually unique combinations of the elements and that there are no black and white answers. Practitioners of Ayurveda believe that our true natural state of being is one of balance, with health and happiness falling right in line. In balance, our bodies are toxin free, our organs function efficiently, and our minds are peaceful.

Witch doctors in Uganda have admitted their part in human sacrifice amid concerns that the practice is spreading in the African country.

One man said he had clients who had captured children and taken their blood and body parts to his shrine, while another confessed to killing at least 70 people including his own son.

The latter has now given up the ritual and is campaigning to stamp it out, according to BBC News.

The African country's government claimed human sacrifice was on the increase.

According to officials trying to tackle it, the crime is directly linked to rising levels of development and prosperity - and an increasing belief that witchcraft can help people get rich quickly.

Some 12 percent of minors held in government custody are sexually abused, and in some facilities the rate reaches a stunning one in three children, says a report released Thursday by the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

The first-ever National Survey of Youth in Custody found that no less than 10 percent of the 26,550 juveniles being held in detention facilities in the US are abused by staff at the facility, while another 2.6 percent report abuse at the hands of other inmates.

Among the facilities studied were six identified to have rates of sexual abuse as high as three in 10. According to the Associated Press, those six facilities are Pendleton Juvenile Correctional Facility in Indiana; Corsicana Residential Treatment Center in Texas; Backbone Mountain Youth Center in Swanton, Maryland; Samarkand Youth Development Center in Eagle Springs, North Carolina.; Cresson Secure Treatment Unit in Pennsylvania; and the Culpeper Juvenile Correctional Center, Long Term, in Mitchells, Virginia.

New York - The incidence of type 1 diabetes is now twice as high among children as it was in the 1980s, and 10 to 20 times more common than 100 years ago, according to peer-reviewed research uncovered in a new book from Kaplan Publishing.

While rising levels of type 2 diabetes are well known (and typically linked to increasing obesity), the corresponding rise in type 1, or "juvenile," diabetes has rarely if ever been described in the news media, despite a substantial body of scientific evidence. While widely accepted by leading diabetes researchers, the increase in type 1 has as yet received scant attention from leading diabetes advocacy organizations.

Now veteran medical journalist Dan Hurley has gathered the evidence from published studies and investigative reporting in DIABETES RISING: How A Rare Disease Became A Modern Pandemic, And What To Do About It. Hurley, an award-winning reporter who has written often for the "Science Times" section of The New York Times, cites studies and analysis by some of the top researchers in the field documenting the long-term and ongoing rise.

Two recent studies analyzing the side effects of morphine have revealed that the chronic pain drug and other opiate-based pain medications contribute to the growth and spread of cancer cells. Dr. Patrick Singleton, Ph.D., author of the studies and assistant professor of medicine at the University of Chicago Medical Center, emphasized that the discovery could change the way cancer patients are treated for pain.

Morphine is a highly potent, highly addictive opiate analgesic that works by crossing the protective blood-brain barrier to get to the central nervous system where it alleviates a person's pain symptoms. Laboratory studies have revealed that a side effect to relieving pain is the prompting of cancer cells to replicate and proliferate throughout the body. Morphine also obstructs the body's immune response by decreasing the barrier function that protects the body from foreign invaders.

The late pharmacologist Leon Goldberg of the University of Chicago developed a solution drug called methylnaltrexone (MNTX) in the 1980s that blocks the negative side effects of morphine while preserving its pain relieving capabilities. Current research indicates that MNTX works in some way to preserve the "mu" opiate receptor functionality which blocks tumor growth. Morphine alone disrupts the mu receptor, instigating the spread of cancer.

Countless moms have told their children to eat their veggies -- especially carrots -- in order to help their eyesight. It turns out that "old wives' tale" is actually sound science. According to a study just published in the Journal of Food Science, a publication of the Institute of Food Technologists, the phytonutrients known as carotenoids not only may prevent age-related eye diseases but they've also been found to improve vision.

Carotenoids are the yellow, orange, and red pigments synthesized by plants and found in many colored vegetables and fruits. Some of the most common carotenoids found in plant-rich diets include alpha-carotene, beta-carotene, beta-cryptoxanthin, lutein, zeaxanthin, and lycopene.

Scientists from the University of Georgia evaluated data from multiple studies to investigate the effects of two carotenoids, lutein and zeaxanthin, on visual performance. These particular carotenoids have been shown to play an important role in human vision, including helping to keep the retina healthy.