Long term exposure to air pollution could damage the brain and lead to learning and memory problems and even depression, new research has revealed.

The tests on mice showed that in the long term dirty air could cause actual physical changes to the brain which in turn had negative effects.

While other studies have looked at the impact polluted air has on the heart and lungs this is one of the first to look at the effect on the brain, lead author Laura Fonken noted. She said:

"The results suggest prolonged exposure to polluted air can have visible, negative effects on the brain, which can lead to a variety of health problems.

"This could have important and troubling implications for people who live and work in polluted urban areas around the world."

Ms Fonken, a doctoral student, and her colleagues at Ohio State University exposed mice to either filtered air of polluted air six hours a day, five days a week for almost half their lifespan which was 10 months.

Industrial Pollutants: Scientists find that high blood levels correlate with a core feature of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Children's exposure to a growing list of industrial chemicals, including certain pesticides and phthalates, has been linked to development of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Now evidence suggests that perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs) boost ADHD risks by making children prone to impulsive behavior (Environ. Sci. Technol., DOI: 10.1021/es103712g).

Used since the 1950s to make Teflon and many other stain- and water-repellent products, PFCs are now global contaminants. Scientists had already associated elevated PFCs with neurological problems, such as delayed gross motor development. A study published in December found tantalizing links between blood PFC levels and diagnoses of ADHD (Environ. Health Perspect., DOI: 10.1289/ehp.1001898). Brooks Gump, a psychologist at Syracuse University, wanted to go one step further: He and his colleagues were interested in how the chemicals might affect impulsivity, a core ADHD feature. Impulsivity has cascading effects on so-called "executive functions," such as planning, verbal regulation, and motor control. ADHD is a complex and multi-faceted diagnosis, Gump notes, that results from deficits in executive functioning. By identifying any influence that PFCs have on impulsivity, Gump hoped to connect the dots between chemical exposure, nervous system effects, and processes leading to ADHD.

A new US study published June 30 suggests the surfaces in your office could be covered in a coating of toxic dust.

Researchers discovered concentrations of a banned flame retardant called polybrominated dipheny ether (PBDE) on the hands of workers who spent at least 20 hours a week in an office. The study evaluated 31 offices in Boston, Massachusetts, and researchers noted that the amount of PBDE on workers' hands was linked to how much was measured in their blood.

PBDEs were once widely used in computers and other electronics as well as the polyurethane foam padding in office chairs, furniture, and carpeting, so the chemicals are lurking in a lot of offices, even though they are now banned under the Stockholm Convention, a treaty to control and phase out major pollutants.

The drug industry is coming up with ever more clever ways to pump Americans full of drugs they may not need - and that may not even work.

The discovery that many people with life problems or occasional bad moods would willingly dose themselves with antidepressants sailed the drug industry through the 2000s. A good chunk of the $4.5 billion a year direct-to-consumer advertising has been devoted to convincing people they don't have problems with their job, the economy and their family, they have depression. Especially because depression can't be diagnosed from a blood test.

Unfortunately, three things dried up the depression gravy train for the drug industry. Blockbusters went off patent and generics took off, antidepressants were linked with gory and unpredictable violence, especially in young users and - they didn't even work, according to medical articles!

Southern California researchers found plastic in nearly 1 in 10 small fish collected in the northern Pacific Ocean in the latest study to call attention to floating marine debris entering the food chain.

The study published this week by scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego estimated that fish in the northern Pacific Ocean are ingesting as much as 24,000 tons of plastic each year.

Although the research found a lower percentage of affected fish than previous studies, it is the latest to quantify how many fish are eating marine garbage - most of it confetti-sized flecks of discarded plastic - that has accumulated in vast, slow-moving ocean currents known as gyres.

The results came from a 2009 voyage a group of graduate students made to the so-called Pacific garbage patch, an area of high concentration of fragments of floating garbage about 1,000 miles off the California coast. Researchers cast nets into the water and collected 141 fish, mostly lanternfish measuring just a few inches, and took them to a laboratory in San Diego to dissect.

It's unlikely to impress Jamie Oliver. Far from discouraging pupils from a junk food diet, a council is making it even easier to indulge - by spending £100,000 on a footpath from their school gate to McDonald's.

Every lunchtime 200 pupils shun school meals to walk along the grass verge of a busy road to the burger bar.

A footpath, already being nicknamed the 'McPath', is being built to make the half-mile walk safer - and the school's head and governors are supporting it.

The decision is likely to infuriate campaigners, most notably TV chef Oliver, who have pushed for healthier school meals.

But council chiefs said they couldn't stop children eating burgers and needed to protect them along the busy A48

A chorus of concern about the management of a number of hospitals in Ontario's Niagara region is growing amidst an outbreak of Clostridium difficile that's been linked to the deaths of 16 patients.

The patients were being treated at three hospitals experiencing clusters of cases of the bacterial disease: four have died at the Greater Niagara General Hospital, 10 at St. Catharines General Hospital and two at the Welland Hospital since the outbreak was declared May 28.

The three centres are run by the Niagara Health System, a network of seven hospitals serving 434,000 people around Niagara Falls and St. Catharines.

Protesters will hold a rally outside the Greater Niagara General Hospital on Wednesday to voice their displeasure with the way the hospitals are being run.

Organizers said the outbreak of the disease, which causes severe diarrhea in certain vulnerable patients as a result of taking antibiotics, is just the latest example of how the network has mismanaged the hospitals.

"We believe the NHS has been ignoring the crisis in health care for a while and I think this particular issue, the C. difficile, was the thing that had our council say, 'We've had enough,'" said Niagara City Councillor Wayne Gates.

The Niagara Health System took too long to alert the public about the health concerns arising from C. difficile, Mr. Gates said, noting that health officials first learned about the outbreak May 12, but didn't alert the public until more than a month later.

This comes after the closing of emergency departments in two hospitals in the area.

Water actually is a battleground between good and evil and we see this in the fluoridation issue. One cannot understand the universe of water without grappling with poisonous fluoride and its government-mandated entry into public water supplies in the United States, Brazil, and several other countries that have stupidly followed America's lead in water fluoridation. Just because it's invisible does not make it any less deadly in the long haul in terms of public health. I had to say that because most people in fluoridated countries just don't mind that it is there; it's simply off their radar screens. And in fact, when you go back to the history and beginning of water fluoridation, we find out that it was the Nazis who used it first to turn their prisoners of war into passive sheep.

The use of varenicline to stop smoking is associated with a 72% increased risk of a serious adverse cardiovascular event, states an article in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) (pre-embargo link only).

Heart disease is a common cause of serious illness and death in smokers and is often a reason for people to stop smoking. Varenicline is one of the most commonly used drugs to help people quit smoking worldwide. When varenicline was launched in 2006, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) safety reviewers reported that existing data indicated it could raise the risk of adverse cardiac events. The FDA recently updated the label for Chantix based on a small increased risk of cardiovascular events among smokers with heart disease.


A team of researchers from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland; the University of East Anglia, Norwich, United Kingdom; and Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, sought to investigate the serious cardiac effects of varenicline in tobacco users (smokers or smokeless tobacco users) compared with placebos in clinical trials. They looked at 14 trials that included 8216 patients (4908 people on varenicline and 3308 taking placebos). All trials except one excluded people with a history of heart disease.

Let's make one thing clear - when someone is going to lower carbohydrate content in their diet, they should replace it mostly with fat, not protein. Eating a lot of protein with little fat and carbs may be a short term strategy for initiating fat loss, but not a healthy way of eating in the long run. A lot of people, who are willing to try or have already felt the benefits of low-carb/high-fat eating, are scared of hurting themselves, because the common knowledge is that saturated fat and cholesterol cause heart disease by clogging arteries. In reality, that is as far from the truth as Planet Earth is from the Sun!

Saturated fat (SF) and cholesterol (CH) are both important components of healthy cell membranes - SF makes them optimally rigid and without CH our trillions of cells would collapse into jello-like substance. Unlike polyunsaturated fatty acids, saturated fatty acids do not oxidize easily, because they have a very stable molecular structure. By the way, atherosclerotic plaque found on the walls of arteries is made up mostly of unsaturated fatty acids.

By minimizing SF intake, it is impossible to get enough fat soluble vitamins. A lot of nutrients found in vegetables go to waste if not prepared with fat - and by fat I mean SF, because only saturated fatty acids have the ability to resist heat and thus not oxidize. Moreover, energy provided by fats is long-lasting and does not result in an energy crash. And SF is the most satiating macronutrient of all!

CH is vital for healthy brain function and it protects against depression. It acts as a powerful antioxidant, even protecting us from cancer. Without CH our skin is incapable of synthesizing vitamin D from sunlight. With too little CH, our bodies cannot make new cells and repair old ones quickly enough, which means accelerated aging. In addition to being a building material for cells, cholesterol is used by the body to synthesize hormones we need for fighting stress and simply living a normal life. That is why a stressful lifestyle raises CH levels in the blood - we need more CH to cope with increased demands. Older people have higher CH levels, because their lifespan has created more cellular damage compared to younger people - thus its unwise to lower their CH with drugs. By the way, people with higher CH levels live longer than people with lower CH levels.