Health & WellnessS


Dominoes

New York Jets hall of famer Joe Namath says human body 'Just not designed' to play football

Joe Namath
© Jemal Countess/Getty ImagesJoe Namath
New York Jets legend Joe Namath says he's "improved" after going through "some things medically" that could be tied to concussions suffered during his playing days.

Namath made the comments in a CBS interview to be aired the morning of Super Bowl XLVIII.

"I've seen some things on my brain. But I've had some treatment, and I've improved," Namath told Rita Braver of "CBS Sunday Morning."

Namath, whose knee problems have been well documented, said the body is "just not designed" to play football.

Beaker

Denmark farmer: Pig deformities and birth defects due to GMO feed

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Thanks to Monsanto's genetically modified crops and creations, one pig farmer in Denmark is sounding the alarm on what he believes are deformities caused by genetically modified feed, crippling the pigs he raises. According to The Ecologist, farmer Ib Pedersen has found piglets born with spinal deformities, visible growths and abnormalities, and even conjoined twins. He blames glyphosate - the herbicide found on genetically modified crops.

A primary ingredient in Monsanto's Roundup, glyphosate is a weed-killing chemical routinely sprayed on crops that have been genetically-modified to withstand it's killer effects. Glyphosate has been found in staggering amounts in human urine and is not only found in our food, but in the water system.

For farmers like Pedersen, there are multiple problems with glyphosate. Not only does he have to worry about consuming it himself, but he has rising concerns about its effects on his piglets.

Bad Guys

Grocery Manufacturer's Association overtakes Monsanto as "Most evil corporation on the planet"

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The addictive and health-harming nature of sugar and processed food has been repeatedly confirmed through the years, and genetically engineered foods rank equally high on the list when it comes to foods that do more harm than good.

Monsanto, as most of you may already know, has long been referred to by those in the know as "the most evil company on the planet." But it has stiff competition. Before there was Monsanto, junk food companies were already hard at work influencing American politics to further their own agenda.

The processed food industry has a lot to answer for when it comes to the general health of Americans, who spend upwards of 90 percent of all their food dollars on processed convenience foods.

The latest developments in the fight for GMO labeling actually makes a strong case for giving the title of "Most Evil Organization on the Planet" to the Grocery Manufacturer's Association of America (GMA), which represents the processed food leaders, including Pepsi, Coke, Kraft, Kellogg's, and General Mills.

The Grocery Manufacturer's Association also lists Monsanto as a member, so it would make sense that the sum would be greater than the parts.

This organization is no stranger to stooping way down low to protect their members' interests - your health and human rights be damned. And that is, in my opinion, evil.

Shopping Bag

Study: Even grocery store coupons are mostly trying to sell you junk

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Being poor means a lot more these days than having less money to buy an Escalade and that third summer vacation home on the beach.

Try being able to afford buying healthy food in modern America.

Now a study in this month's edition of Preventing Chronic Disease has shown that grocery stores tend to offer coupons cutting costs on its less than healthy fare, while rarely discounting the actual "good stuff":
The study found that coupons offered by grocery stores often chop the costs of calorie-laden foods such as crackers, chips, desserts and sugary drinks. Relatively few markets discount lean meats, low-fat dairy products or fresh fruits and vegetables, the researchers said.
"We know from other studies that when you lower the price of foods, people buy more of them," said study author Dr. Hilary Seligman, assistant professor in residence at the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine. "When junk foods are the foods stores are lowering the prices of, we shouldn't be surprised that more of them are purchased." (source)
By the way, when is the last time anyone saw a coupon for some fresh fruits or vegetables?

Nuke

We Are Giving Ourselves Cancer

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© Launch Media/Ben Jones

Despite great strides in prevention and treatment, cancer rates remain stubbornly high and may soon surpass heart disease as the leading cause of death in the United States. Increasingly, we and many other experts believe that an important culprit may be our own medical practices: We are silently irradiating ourselves to death.

The use of medical imaging with high-dose radiation - CT scans in particular - has soared in the last 20 years. Our resulting exposure to medical radiation has increased more than sixfold between the 1980s and 2006, according to the National Council on Radiation Protection & Measurements. The radiation doses of CT scans (a series of X-ray images from multiple angles) are 100 to 1,000 times higher than conventional X-rays.

Of course, early diagnosis thanks to medical imaging can be lifesaving. But there is distressingly little evidence of better health outcomes associated with the current high rate of scans. There is, however, evidence of its harms.

2 + 2 = 4

Are genetically modified foods a gut-wrenching combination?

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Gluten sensitivity is currently estimated to affect as many as 18 million Americans.[1] Reactions to gluten, a protein found in wheat, rye, and barley, are becoming increasingly common. Gluten sensitivity can range in severity from mild discomfort, such as gas and bloating, to celiac disease, a serious autoimmune condition that can, if undiagnosed, result in a 4-fold increase in death.[2] Genetics alone cannot explain the rapid rise in gluten-related disorders, and experts believe that there must be an environmental trigger. There continues to be much debate about what that environmental trigger may be.

Some assert that a higher gluten content of modern wheat is to blame for the rising prevalence of gluten-related disorders.[3] But a 2013 review of data commissioned by the United States Department of Agriculture found no evidence to support this.[4] Others blame increased consumption of wheat overall,[4] age of wheat introduction,[5] cesarean birth,[6] breastfeeding duration,[7] or alterations in intestinal microflora.[8] All of these do offer some explanation, but they cannot completely account for the drastic increase in gluten sensitivities that we have seen in recent years.

Another possible environmental trigger may be the introduction of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) to the American food supply, which occurred in the mid-1990s. GMOs are created by a laboratory process that transfers genetic material into the DNA of an organism. There are nine genetically modified (GM) food crops currently on the market: soy, corn, cotton (oil), canola (oil), sugar from sugar beets, zucchini, yellow squash, Hawaiian papaya, and alfalfa. Notice that wheat is not one of these. Although wheat has been hybridized through natural breeding techniques over the years, it is not in fact a GMO.

Comment: For more information on wheat and gluten intolerance read the following articles:

The Dark Side of Wheat - New Perspectives on Celiac Disease and Wheat Intolerance
Opening Pandora's Bread Box: The Critical Role of Wheat Lectin in Human Disease
Gluten: What You Don't Know Might Kill You
Facts you might not know about gluten
Book Review: Gluten Toxicity - The Mysterious Symptoms of Celiac Disease, Dermatitis Herpetiformis, and Non-Celiac Gluten Intolerance
Can You Stomach Wheat? How Giving up Grain May Better Your Health
Just because someone doesn't have coeliac disease, doesn't mean they don't have a problem with gluten
Beyond Gluten-Free: The Critical Role of Chitin-Binding Lectins in Human Disease
Gluten Sensitivity and the Impact on the Brain


Video

Leaked! Food lobby threatens to sue any state that tries to label GMOs

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Apparently GMOs are so awesome and wonderful, the companies that sell them are doing everything they can to keep people from knowing it.

The Organic Consumers Association is reporting that the Grocery Manufacturer's Association - the mega lobby group that represents 300+ companies and much more than just grocery stores - is using a leaked talking points memo to basically misinform and intimidate our legislators with threats of lawsuits should they even attempt to back a GMO labeling law in their state.

This is the same organization that is petitioning to allow GMOs to be considered "natural" on food packaging, and the same group that is trying to get a weak voluntary federal law passed to preempt the adoption of any meaningful labeling legislation at the state level.

And even the association admits that 80% of the food consumed in the United States is genetically modified. (Not sure how they know that, considering it isn't labeled...).

Wolf

How pet food is killing your dog

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Unhappy puppy: Processed dog food could cause serious harm to the pets that eat it.

Would you feed your family a meal made with condemned beef? Or spray the children's tea with rancid fat collected from a deep-fat fryer? Or serve biscuits made with empty grain hulls swept from a factory floor?

Because that's what we do to our dogs.

The unpalatable truth is that if you give your dog processed dog food - dried, tinned or in a pouch - you may be feeding them substances that cause them serious, possibly fatal, harm.

In a Channel 5 documentary this week, I am one of a number of canine nutrition experts who accuse the big dog food manufacturers of knowingly shortening the lives of millions of dogs a year.

The big businesses selling us processed dog food use ingredients unsuitable for human consumption - and unsuitable, in my view, for canine consumption.

They make vast profits from something that would otherwise be thrown away. It is a consumer scandal waiting to happen.

We all know there is a connection between our diet and health. The same applies to dogs, and every other species on the planet. But what is the best, most biologically appropriate diet for dogs?

The diet your dog should be eating is that of a grey wolf in the wild. If you dissect a dog and a grey wolf you'll find that their digestive systems are identical. The two animals are essentially the same species and so closely related that they can interbreed.

Grey wolves live on prey such as deer, rabbits and mice, and eat everything including the bones, from which they get about a third of their nutrition. They also eat fruit and vegetables.

In short, their diet consists of raw meat, raw bones and raw herbage. This, then, is the diet that allows dogs to achieve optimum health and longevity.

Pills

Statins associated with increased risk of death in those with heart failure

statins
From a purely physiological perspective, the heart is essentially a bag of muscle that pumps blood around the body. In certain circumstances, the heart's pumping action can weaken, ultimately resulting in what is usually termed 'heart failure'. Symptoms of this can include fatigue, breathlessness and fluid retention.

I was interested in a study recently published in the journal Cardiology that assessed the relationship between LDL-cholesterol levels and health outcomes in a group of 212 elderly individuals with known heart failure [1]. These individuals were split into 3 groups according to their LDL-cholesterol levels.

1. < 90 mg/dl
2. 90-115 mg/dl (2.3-3.0 mmol/l)
3. >115 mg/dl

Over an average of 3.7 years, the individuals in the 1st group (with then lowest LDL levels) fared worst. Those in group 3 (with the highest LDL levels) fared the best. 58 per cent of people in group 3 lived at least 50 months compared to just 34 per cent in group 1. These results were in spite of the fact that at the start of the study this group had a disproportionate number of people with severe heart failure in it.

Comment: Let us spell it out clearly: The statin industry is the utmost medical tragedy of all times.See:

Vascular surgeons write a damning report about lowering cholesterol drugs


Roses

A Dietitian's confession: Why I'm turning my back on whole grains

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© Heather NealGluton Diet
Oh, if I had a dollar for every time I scoffed at someone going on a gluten-free diet because it was "the thing" to do. For people with celiac disease, eating wheat can be a matter of life and death; good health and bad. But why would someone give up the goodness of wheat and baked goods just because Elizabeth Hasselback said it was cool? Ha!

And then I had to give up wheat. Cue the retractions (and the tears).

After years and years of preaching to "make half your grains whole" as a dietitian, and claiming that wheat wasn't bad for you as long as it wasn't processed, I've had to change my tune based on personal experience, and admit that it just may be true that wheat is killing us.

It'd been suggested to me before by a doctor or 2 that I may have a gluten sensitivity, but I adamantly refused to fall for it. I'd had the test for celiac disease and it was negative, so clearly I was immune to this problem with what the whole world seemed to be rapidly discovering. Then, my son was born with a wheat allergy (among other food allergies). I didn't hesitate to raid the pantry and rid it of all of its wheat contents to protect my son's health. This is the part where I'm supposed to tell this amazing story of how much better I suddenly felt, and how much better my health was. But, that didn't happen. What happened is, I started eating it again and quickly started feeling like crap. Much to my dismay, I cut it out again under doctor's orders and slowly but surely began to feel better again.