Coca-Cola and Pepsi have both announced they will remove brominated vegetable oil, a somewhat controversial chemical added to prevent the drinks' ingredients from separating. The change followed a series of petitions on Change.org by Sarah Kavanagh, a Mississippi teenager who noted it was patented as a flame retardant and unapproved for use in Japan and the EU.

Pepsi removed BVO from Gatorade last year, and Coca-Cola initiated the push to remove the ingredient from all products by the end of this year (Pepsi apparently jumped on the BVO-free train after Coca-Cola's announcement). The companies aren't framing the change as a health concern; a Coca-Cola spokesperson says "All of our beverages, including those with BVO, are safe and always have been - and comply with all regulations in the countries where they are sold." Pepsi similarly dodged the question of BVO removal by acknowledging it had been "hearing rumblings" about the additive last year.

• Running marathons can lead to serious cardiac problems later in life
• People who are super-fit are more likely to need pacemakers in old age
• This is because exercise causes changes in the body that can disrupt electrical pulses in the heart causing abnormal heart rhythms

Running marathons and other gruelling races is bad for the heart and could lead to serious cardiac problems in later life.

Those who enjoy a lean look from taking part in marathons, triathlons and iron man challenges are more likely to need pacemakers in old age, a new study says.

Tests on mice, funded by the British Heart Foundation, show microscopic changes take place in the body due to exercise training.

This can disrupt the electrical pulse of the heart, causing the super-fit to suffer abnormal heart rhythms.

The number of people taking part in marathons is going up every year.

Elderly athletes with a lifelong history of endurance training and competing are prone to heart rhythm disturbances, known as arrhythmias.

This is due to molecular changes in the heart's pacemaker from the exercise training, according to scientists from the University of Manchester.

Normal adults have a resting heart beat of between 60 and 100 per minute.

But the hearts of athletes beat as slow as 30 times a minute - or even lower at night when there can be long pauses between beats.

Many healthy foods contain high levels of estrogen.

It is no secret that our bodies and our environment are swimming in estrogen. Puberty is occurring as early as eight years old in children and recently babies in China have developed breasts. Frogs and fish are becoming "intersex" and losing their male characteristics from excreted estrogens in the environment and waterways. In England, the Daily Mail ran a feature on the phenomenon of women's bra cup sizes increasing independent of their weights, likely because of environmental and livestock chemicals. The website Green Prophet speculated that women in the Middle East are not yet experiencing cup inflation because their environments have not become similarly estrogenized.

While many people are fans of big boobs, the larger issue of feminized women, men and wildlife should be a wakeup call. Estrogen is blamed for everything from breast and prostate cancer and other hormone-linked conditions to obesity, sexual dysfunction, dropping sperm counts and depression and mood disorders. In studies of women given prescribed hormone drugs, estrogen was linked to lung cancer, ovarian cancer, skin cancer, gall bladder cancer, cataracts urinary incontinence and joint degeneration.

Dr. Don Huber is an award-winning, international scientist and professor emeritus of plant pathology at Purdue University. Today he spoke with Food Integrity about the dangers of GMOs and Glyphosate (Roundup). Dr. Huber's 50+ years of research and expertise in the area of plant pathology with a focus on epidemiology and control of soil-borne pathogens gives him much credibility in discussing the science behind GMOs and Glyphoshate. He spoke about Glyphosate, which is the most widely used herbicide in the world, being many times more toxic than DDT. He explained how Glyphosate, a mineral chelator, herbicide and patented antibiotic, affects our human body as well as the environment and the inherent dangers associated with this chronic toxin.

Dr. Huber discussed the alarming information about the recent finding of Glyphosate in human breast milk. He talked about the need for immediate research in this area - as the levels were much higher than the levels found in urine. His concern for future generations on the under-researched and flawed science of genetic engineering is fact- based and comprehensive. He stated:

Road traffic injuries, HIV/AIDS, and suicide are the top three causes of death for teenagers, while depression is the main reason behind illness and disability, the World Health Organization (WHO) says in its new report on adolescent health.

Titled 'Health for the World's Adolescents: A second chance in the second decade,' the report is based on a review of health policies from 109 countries. The authors not only studied a variety of published evidence, but also focused on consultations with children and adolescents from across the globe, ranging from 10 to 19 years of age.

A provocative, though still largely under appreciated study titled, "Parallels between Pathogens and Gluten Peptides in Celiac Sprue," published in PLoS in 2008 proposed a radically new definition of pathogen be employed to understand the extensively documented harm that the consumption of wheat is capable of doing to human physiology.The new theory proposes that we movebeyond initial 19^th century formulation of pathogens as exogenous agents (e.g. bacteria, viruses, fungi) capable of causing disease in susceptible organisms to include dietary exposure to wheat peptides within genetically susceptible susceptible individuals.

A new definition of pathogenicity that includes wheat

Obviously, wheat proteins are not capable of self-replication within a susceptible host, as is the case for viruses or bacteria, which makes the new definition different from the conventional view that a pathogen must be a self-replicating infectious organism. With the recent discovery of the pathogenicity of prions, that is, misfolded proteins capable of transferring their pathogenic shape to other proteins they are in contact with, in conditions like mad cow disease, there is already a clear precedent for redefining our concept of both what a pathogen is and the definition of pathogenicity as a whole.

The study offers the following revised definition:

"In the broadest sense, a pathogen can be defined as any substance capable of causing disease [21]. Under this definition, pathogens need not be replicative, and could include toxins, food allergens, and dietary antigens responsible for chronic inflammation, such as gluten peptides in the context of celiac sprue."

Before we delve deeper into their definition and explanation, it is interesting that we came to a similar conclusion in a previous article titled, "Opening Pandora's Box: The Critical Role of Wheat Lectin In Human Disease," where the wheat lectin, known as wheat germ agglutinin (WGA), was identified as exhibiting pathogenic characteristics similar to viruses like influenza.

One of the most pervasive and stupid things that we are currently told to do is to reduce salt intake. This advice has never been based on controlled clinical studies, ever.

Yet, as with the cholesterol myth, the dogma that we should all reduce salt intake has become impervious to facts. I find that the 'salt hypothesis' is rather like a monster from a 1950s B movie.

Every time you attack it with evidence it simply shrugs it off and grows even stronger.

Very recently, a study was done in Australia looking at salt intake. Actually it looked at sodium intake, not salt intake.

I find this interesting, as no-one that I know eats sodium. In fact, it would be interesting to see someone try. To quote from Wikipedia

'Sodium is generally less reactive than potassium and more reactive than lithium. Like all the alkali metals, it reacts exothermically with water, to the point that sufficiently large pieces melt to a sphere and may explode; this reaction produces caustic sodium hydroxide and flammable hydrogen gas.'

Consuming two grams sodium would likely cause you to explode, splattering sodium hydroxide over the walls. Along with various organs and other body parts.

So why do people talk about sodium consumption? I have never really worked this one out. But it does make things rather confusing. The latest guidelines suggest we should consume less than 2300mg of sodium a day, even as low as 1500mg. Go on, try it. Any idea how much salt (NaCl) that would be? Any idea how much salt you consume every day? No, thought not.

Yes, we have been given guidelines that are totally meaningless, and impossible to follow. In fact 2300mg of sodium is roughly 6000mg of salt (NaCl). So why are we not advise to eat six grams of salt a day? I have no idea. Perhaps someone can tell me. What is this sodium nonsense? [Not that anyone has any idea what six grams of salt even looks like poured out of a salt shaker - I know, I have tried this several times.]

A federal bill, HR 3717, is being refined in the hope of gaining big support from both sides of the political aisle.

Rep. Tim Murphy (R-Pa.) is the key point man for the American Psychiatric Association.

This bill is playing off of Aurora, Sandy Hook, Boston, and other recent "mass events."

The propaganda hook is: catch mental illness early, prevent tragedy.

The strategy is: expand mental health services into every cranny and nook of the society, starting with children.

Translation: diagnose mental disorders and drug patients with toxic compounds.

As I've demonstrated in many past articles, none of the 300 officially certified mental disorders has any defining diagnostic test. No blood test, no urine test, no brain scan, no genetic assay.

The names and descriptions of all the disorders are outright frauds, packaged to sell harmful drugs.

But that doesn't stop the juggernaut.

A new peer reviewed paper was published in a recent issue of Molecular and Genetic Medicine (s1:025)(s1:2014) that presents convincing evidence that the rapid increase in the number of vaccines given to US children has now created a state of immune overload in the majority, or close to the majority, of young US children and that this is being manifested by related health issues including epidemics of obesity, diabetes, and autism. The new paper is authored by immunologist J. Bart Classen, MD. "We have been publishing for years that vaccines are causing an epidemic of inflammatory diseases including diabetes, obesity and autism. However the number of vaccines given to children has continued to rise to a point where we have reached a state of immune overload in roughly the majority of young US children. The new paper reviews the evidence of immune overload and the plethora of different health effects the children are developing because of the immune overload," says Dr. J. Bart Classen, MD

The United States is one of only three countries in the world that does not offer a monetary supplement to new mothers on maternity leave from their jobs, according to a United Nations study.

The report, prepared by the UN's International Labor Organization, found that the only two other nations that do not provide cash benefits during maternity leave are the absolute Persian Gulf monarchy Oman and Papua New Guinea, where violence against women is such an epidemic that 60 percent of men have acknowledged committing rape, according to the UN data.