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The medical risks of getting 'inked'


Medical Xpress
Sun, 28 May 2017 16:55 UTC
infected tatoo

Infected tatoo
In what they believe to be the first survey of its kind in the United States, researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center have found that as many as 6 percent of adult New Yorkers who get "inked"—in other words, those who get a tattoo—have experienced some form of tattoo-related rash, severe itching or swelling that lasted longer than four months and, in some cases, for many years.

"We were rather alarmed at the high rate of reported chronic complications tied to getting a tattoo," says senior study investigator and NYU Langone dermatologist Marie Leger, MD, PhD, whose team's latest findings appear in the journal Contact Dermatitis online May 27.

"Given the growing popularity of tattoos," says Leger, an assistant professor in NYU Langone's Ronald O. Perelman Department of Dermatology, "physicians, public health officials, and consumers need to be aware of the risks involved."

Leger says some adverse skin reactions are treatable with anti-inflammatory steroid drugs, but others may require laser surgery. For stronger reactions, surgery is sometimes necessary to remove tattooed areas of the skin or built-up scar tissue and granular skin lesions, which can rise several millimeters on the skin and cause considerable itching and emotional distress.

Comment: See also:

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Pills

First trial using MDMA to treat alcoholism to take place in the UK


RT
Sun, 02 Jul 2017 15:25 UTC
MDMA pills
© Reuters
Twenty chronic alcoholics will be given doses of pure MDMA, a drug known recreationally as molly, or ecstasy, in a bid to wean them off alcohol, during a landmark experimental study set to begin in Bristol this summer.
"After 100 years of modern psychiatry our treatments are really poor," lead researcher, Ben Sessa, of Imperial College London, said in his explanation of the study at the Breaking Convention conference in London this week. "The chances of relapse for these [heavy-drinking] patients are really high - 90 percent at three years. No one has ever given MDMA to treat alcoholism before."
Prior to the study, which received ethical approval in recent weeks, the patients, who on average consume an equivalent of five bottles of wine a day, will be sent to detox, and receive two drug-free therapy sessions. Then, they will be given a high dose of ecstasy, and undergo an all-day counseling session, which will comprise meditation and one-to-one talks with a therapist.
"It's using drugs to enhance the relationship between the therapist and the patient, and it allows us to dig down and get to the heart of the problems that drive long-term mental illness," said Sessa, who said that the treatment isn't "all about the drugs."

Comment: More on MDMA as a treatment for PTSD:

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Document

Woops! Bayer and Syngenta accidentally fund a study showing their pesticides harm bees

Justin Gardner
The Free Thought Project
Sat, 01 Jul 2017 14:33 UTC
bayer bees
A large-scale study on neonicotinoid pesticides is adding to the growing body of evidence that these agricultural chemicals are indeed harming bee populations. Carried out at 33 sites in the United Kingdom, Germany and Hungary, the study found that exposure to neonicotinoids "left honeybee hives less likely to survive over winter, while bumblebees and solitary bees produced fewer queens."

Bayer and Syngenta, makers of "neonic" pesticides who stand to reap massive profits if Europe lifts the neonic ban, promptly disputed the researchers' conclusions—even though they partially funded the study.

The authors note that this is the first real-world experiment demonstrating direct causation between neonics and reduced bee populations, and is consistent with other findings.

According to the study abstract:

Comment: See also:

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Pirates

Monsanto fighting "cancer causing" label for Roundup weedkiller in California

Aaron Kesel
Activist Post
Fri, 30 Jun 2017 00:46 UTC
Monansto
Roundup weedkiller maker Monsanto is planning to fight back as California moves closer to labeling the dangerous chemical as "cancer causing."

Glyphosate will be added to California's Proposition 65 list of chemicals known to cause cancer effective July 7, the state's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) said.

Monsanto argues that the decision is "unwarranted on the basis of science and the law."

However, Prop. 65, which was passed as a ballot initiative in 1986, looks to scientific research, not federal regulators, when deciding what to include on the list. The language of the law itself reads, "State government agencies have failed to provide them [California residents] with adequate protection" from chemicals that can cause cancer or reproductive harm.

This comes after a U.S. Judge Kristi Kapetan ruled against Monsanto's legal challenge to block the labeling of its product in March.

Comment: Glyphosate toxicity: An interview with genetic engineer Thierry Vrain
Vrain: We know very little about the residual amounts of glyphosate in food crops for human and animal consumption. Most other pesticides and herbicides are closely monitored by government agencies in Canada and the United States, but for some reason glyphosate residues have not been monitored closely. What we do know is that the legal levels allowed by the Environmental Protection Agency and Health Canada have increased significantly in the past few years — presumably to accommodate the new reality. The allowable levels are now well above parts per million (ppm). Every single crop has allowable levels: sugar at 10 ppm, soybean and canola at 20 ppm, cereals at 30 ppm, nongrass animal feed at 400 ppm. Residue levels that were once considered extreme are now seen as normal.

A large number of published scientific studies — mostly done outside the United States — show that as little as 1 ppm of glyphosate will kill almost all bacteria — particularly beneficial bacteria — in the gut of animals; that endocrine disruption starts at 0.5 ppm; and that even just a few ppm can cause oxidative stress, chronic inflammation, DNA damage, and many other disruptions in mammalian organ cells and tissues. Last year, the World Health Organization asked an international team of 17 senior toxicologists from 11 countries to review the status of several agricultural chemicals, including glyphosate. Their verdict regarding glyphosate's toxicity was that the scientific literature contains enough convincing evidence to classify it as a probable carcinogen.


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Bulb

Stem cells used for the first time to treat paralyzed man - and he regained upper body movement


Alternative World News Network
Wed, 02 Nov 2016 15:44 UTC
Kristopher (Kris) Boesen
In March of 2016, Kristopher (Kris) Boesen suffered a traumatic injury to his cervical spine when his car fishtailed on wet road, sending his vehicle into a tree and then crashing into a telephone pole. The accident left him paralyzed from the neck down and doctors warned his parents that he may never regain motor control again.

They also said that he may qualify for an experimental new procedure, involving stem cells, that could actually repair some of the damage.

They went for it and in April, Charles Liu, MD, PhD, director of the USC Neurorestoration Center, in collaboration with Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center and Keck Medicine of USC, began the procedure.

He injected an experimental dose of 10 million AST-OPC1 cells directly into Kris' cervical spinal cord.


Comment: The innovations using Stem Cell therapy are coming in fast:

Company hopes to re-animate the brain dead with stem cells, peptides and lasers .

Stem cell therapy: The innovations and potential to help repair and regenerate your body

In world-first trials scientists are using embryonic stem cells to treat Parkinson's and blindness

Researchers discover surgical technique using electricity and stem cells to restore failing organs

Scientists are 'tantalisingly close' to producing large quantities of blood from a patients own stem cells

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Syringe

Jabbing back at snooty vaccine extremist, Paul Offit

Brandon Turbeville
Natural Blaze
Sat, 01 Jul 2017 15:30 UTC
paul offit
If anyone wanted any more proof that vaccine fanatics were becoming even more radicalized and authoritarian they need look no further than Paul Offit's June 18th article for the Daily Beast entitled "When Parents Force the Government's Hand on Vaccines."

Offit's article does not read so much as an opinion piece as it is a threat almost visibly looking down his nose at parents who do not vaccinate while hinting rather openly that if they continue on their current path the government itself may have to step in and force them to change their ways.

Offit does his best during the course of the article to frighten the reader with visions of dead and dying children from allegedly vaccine-preventable diseases and to make a constitutional case for forced vaccination.

What Offit actually accomplishes is revealing himself and the rest of his clan to be nothing more than hidden (and not-so-hidden in the case of Offit) authoritarian fanatics who will literally tear children away from families at gunpoint if that is the only way he can make an entire population act in accordance with his will and belief.

After all, when logic and reason either failure or are on the side of your opponent the only thing you have left to do is to pull out the guns - literally.

Comment: More reactions to Paul Offit's vaccine fanaticism:

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Health

What's your real age?

Helen Thomson
Prevent Disease
Sat, 01 Jul 2017 14:57 UTC
biological age
Age is a peculiar concept. We tend to think of it as the number of birthdays we have celebrated -- our chronological age. But this is just one indicator of the passage of time. We also have a biological age, a measure of how quickly the cells in our body are deteriorating compared with the general population. And these two figures don't always match up.

Just take a look around: we all know people who look young for their age, or folks who seem prematurely wizened. Even in an individual, different parts of the body can age at different speeds. By examining how chronological age lines up with biological age across the population, researchers are starting to pin down how these two measures should sync up -- and what it means for how long we have left when they don't.

In recent years, studies have shown that our biological age is often a more reliable indicator of future health than our actual age. It could help us identify or even prevent disease by tracking the pace at which we're getting older. It may even allow us to slow -- or reverse -- the aging process.

Comment: See also:

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Rose

Alternative to pharmaceuticals: 30,000 plant species are used as medicine across the globe

Alexa Erickson
Collective Evolution
Thu, 29 Jun 2017 00:00 UTC
Plant Medicine
For more than a decade and with increasing urgency, critics have called out the disproportionate influence the pharmaceutical industry has had on the practice of medicine, as well as biomedical research. Meanwhile, the power of natural medicine has increasingly entered the spotlight, and a new study brings more attention to the latter.

A new report released by the Kew Gardens in the United Kingdom has revealed that there are nearly 30,000 plant species recorded as being of medicinal use throughout the world. The report also noted that fewer than 16% of the species used in plant-based medicines are cited in medicinal regulatory publication.

This is surely a blow to the many pharmaceutical companies who stay not just afloat, but on top, by calling natural, plant-based herbal remedies useless in the world of medicine.

Comment: For more on the dangers of pharmaceuticals and the benefits of their plant/natural-based counterparts, check out the SOTT Health and Wellness show episode:

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The Health & Wellness Show: Corporal Punishment: Abuse or Discipline?


Sott.net
Fri, 30 Jun 2017 15:00 UTC
Image
"Whoever spares the rod hates their children, but the one who loves their children is careful to discipline them," so the Bible says. But what is 'the rod'? Does it just mean discipline as in teaching, guiding and setting a proper example? Or does it mean -- in what seems to be the widely accepted view -- actually smacking, hitting or spanking a child in order to correct their behavior? Research states that the majority of parents worldwide use some type of corporal punishment and practically all of these researchers agree that hitting a child is not only ineffective but leads to emotional and behavioral problems and poorer outcomes later in life.

Proper discipline is essential to a child's development but defining what is proper is often the sticking point. On this episode of the Health and Wellness Show we'll discuss discipline, corporal punishment and outright child abuse. We'll also attempt to answer the burning question, "Is it ever okay to spank a child?

Stay tuned for Zoya's Pet Health Segment where the topic will be house training your dog.

Running Time: 01:24:31

Download: MP3

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Health

Vitamin D deficiency is rife in an in-patient psychiatric unit for young people


Questioning Answers
Sat, 17 Jun 2017 08:53 UTC
Vitamin D deficiency
"Adolescents within tier 4 adolescent mental health services may be at higher risk of vitamin D deficiency and so assessment of vitamin D levels should be considered as part of a standard physical health review for this group of young people."
So said the results reported by Neil Stewart & Simon Lewis [1] (open-access) who surveyed blood test results of patients admitted to a tier 4 psychiatric unit for vitamin D levels. Such a study was conducted on the basis that "it is plausible that vitamin D and/or vitamin D deficiency have a role in the pathogenesis of mental illness." Yes, indeed I might agree (see here and see here for examples).

Authors identified some 27 individuals who were tested for vitamin D deficiency between 2012 and 2014 from a population of 56. Over 80% (22/27) had vitamin D levels falling into the deficient or severely deficient range, and none of them had vitamin D levels reaching the bottom end of the typical range (75 - 250 nmol/L). A few other points are worthwhile noting: "In individuals from BME [black and minority ethnic] groups, who were potentially at higher risk of vitamin D deficiency due to increased skin pigmentation, 52.9% (9/17) were tested for vitamin D levels and 100% were deficient or severely deficient."
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