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Diet Coke plans to defend its use of artificial sweeteners in a series of new print ads, as part of an effort to reassure consumers about the safety of its products amid sagging sales.
The ad, which will ultimately run nationally, appeared in the print edition of USA Today in the Atlanta region today and then in the Atlantic Journal Constitution on Thursday, company spokesman Ben Sheidler said. Entitled, "Quality Products You Can Always Feel Good About," the ad will highlight the benefits and safety of low-calorie and artificial sweeteners found in the Atlanta-based soft drink giant's beverages.
More than 40 percent of all U.S. cropland is devoted to GMO crops. Yet even though nearly 80 percent of processed foods sold in the U.S. now contain GMOs, the majority of genetically engineered (GE) crops aren't grown to feed humans. The bulk of today's GE soybeans and corn in particular, are used to feed animals and generate biofuels.
Americans consume 193 pounds of GMOs annually. And the animals that provide us with nearly all the meat, poultry and dairy we eat are force fed GE crops their bodies were never designed to process.
Who's getting healthy on GMOs? Not the American people, whose health has declined since GMOs were introduced into our food. Not American farmers, whose numbers have dropped precipitously since agribusiness has taken over our farmland. And not the billions of animals being pumped full of antibiotics to stave off illnesses associated with confinement and GMO feed.
© Shutterstock.com/ Matt Valentine
New rule (as Bill Maher would say): If you make billions of dollars a year selling unhealthy food, you don't get to tell us to work out.
It was one thing when Cookie Monster began telling kids to eat vegetables. Cookie Monster doesn't earn a living by selling cookies, and vegetables are a fantastic alternative to cookies.
But it was a totally different story when Ronald McDonald went all Richard Simmons on us, visiting schools to tell kids to work out.
Exercise is a great idea, but it's not diet advice. Yet this is a frequent tactic of many of the corporations that rake in profits by selling us junk.
Take Coca-Cola's shameless new fitness campaign. "Are you sitting on a solution?" asks a photo on the company's website, depicting two people cuddled up, sitting on a beach. The thing is, they're drinking the problem: Coca-Cola.
In a laboratory, preclinical study recently published by the journal Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry, Virginia Commonwealth University Massey Cancer Center researchers combined structural features from anti-nausea drug thalidomide with common kitchen spice turmeric to create hybrid molecules that effectively kill multiple myeloma cells.
Thalidomide was first introduced in the 1950s as an anti-nausea medication to help control morning sickness, but was later taken off the shelves in 1962 because it was found to cause birth defects. In the late 1990s the drug was re-introduced as a stand-alone or combination treatment for multiple myeloma. Turmeric, an ancient spice grown in India and other tropical regions of Asia, has a long history of use in herbal remedies and has recently been studied as a means to prevent and treat cancer, arthritis and Alzheimer's disease. According to the American Cancer Society, laboratory studies have shown that curcumin, an active ingredient in turmeric, interferes with several important molecular pathways and inhibits the formation of cancer-causing enzymes in rodents.
Curing liver disease is just another of the potential benefits fish oil can provide those who take it daily.
The study, entitled "Six Months of Intravenous Fish Oil Reverses Pediatric Intestinal Failure Associated Liver Disease," studied a group of children ranging in age from two weeks to 18 years old. Each child in this study had been diagnosed with advanced intestinal failure-associated liver disease. As this disease usually ends in early death, the findings of the study are particularly encouraging.
For six months, these children were treated with intravenous fish oil. When compared to a control group of children who had the disease but receive conventional treatment, the fish oil group performed incredibly. 80 percent of the children in the fish oil group completely recovered from their liver disease after only 17 weeks! In the control group (who were treated with soybean oil), only 5% experienced a recovery.
While a five-year followup to this study still needs to be completed before it can become a standard treatment for this type of liver disease, these results make this treatment incredibly promising.
There is evidence in the archeological record that yoga has been practiced by humans for at least 5,000 years. Whereas this would constitute sufficient evidence for most folks to consider it a practice with real health benefits, as its millions of practitioners widely claim, skeptics say otherwise. They require any activity deemed to be of therapeutic value run the gauntlet of randomized, controlled clinical trials before it is fully accepted within the conventional medical system.
This tendency towards scientism in medicine, or what some call medical monotheism, runs diametrically opposed to the standards of lived-experience - so called "subjectivity" - or anecdotal experience (learning from the experience of others) which is what the majority of the world uses to determine if something has value, or is worth doing or not.
Yoga, of course, is no longer exclusively practiced by a particular religious group. It is considered a form of low-impact exercise and stress-reduction, and is estimated to be practiced by 20 million people in the US alone. This burgeoning interest among Westerners happens to be why so much human clinical research has now been performed on yoga. The US National Library of Medicine's bibliographic database shows that in 1968, seven studies were published on yoga. This year, there have been over 250. So much research, in fact, has accumulated that even systematic reviews of the literature have now been published.
Women who had hysterectomy before reaching natural menopause had significantly higher iron levels in the white matter of the frontal cortex compared to women who reached menopause naturally.
Iron and brain health
Iron is an essential element for health. Both iron deficiency and excess are associated with brain pathology. In the developing brain, too little iron causes neurological impairment with significant cognitive and neuromuscular deficits. As we age, iron accumulation in the brain is also problematic and linked to neurodegenertive disorders. In part because women menstruate, they have naturally lower levels of peripheral (body) iron than men. Researchers believe that the menstrual flushing of excess iron may be in part responsible for delaying the brain iron accumulation that has been linked to early Alzheimer's and Parkinson's in men.
In a study published in the journal Neurobiology of Aging, researchers investigated what effect premenopausal hysterectomy had on brain iron levels. From a sample (n = 93) of healthy older, male and female volunteers, ages 47-80 years, researchers used a specialized MRI to image brain iron levels.
How did you sleep last night? Are you longing for a nap just to take the edge off your fatigue? Perhaps you have been burning the candle at both ends or you may regard sleep as something of an inconvenience in an age when we are rarely able, or indeed willing, to switch off.
Margaret Thatcher said she got by on four hours. It would seem then that sleep, like lunch, is for wimps. Indeed Thomas Edison, the developer of the electric lightbulb, insisted: "Sleep is a criminal waste of time."
Not so, according to Russell Foster, Professor of Circadian Neuroscience at the University of Oxford. He explains: "We squeeze more and more into the day and with the demands of e-mail and work, sleep is always the first victim.
"Because we don't really understand the importance of sleep it is so easy not to sleep.
"It is all part of the way we essentially marginalise the importance of sleep. Thirty six per cent of our lives will be spent asleep. If you lived to 90 that is 32 years. It is telling us that sleep, at some level, is important, yet we don't give it a second thought. It is remarkable.
A lack of sleep can have far-reaching health implications
Not so, according to Russell Foster, Professor of Circadian Neuroscience at the University of Oxford. He explains: "We squeeze more and more into the day and with the demands of e-mail and work, sleep is always the first victim.
"Because we don't really understand the importance of sleep it is so easy not to sleep.
"It is all part of the way we essentially marginalise the importance of sleep. Thirty six per cent of our lives will be spent asleep. If you lived to 90 that is 32 years. It is telling us that sleep, at some level, is important, yet we don't give it a second thought. It is remarkable.
Findings identify a novel pharmacological target for drug development.
Researchers at McGill University have found that sodium - the main chemical component in table salt - is a unique "on/off" switch for a major neurotransmitter receptor in the brain. This receptor, known as the kainate receptor, is fundamental for normal brain function and is implicated in numerous diseases, such as epilepsy and neuropathic pain.
Prof. Derek Bowie and his laboratory in McGill's Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, worked with University of Oxford researchers to make the discovery. By offering a different view of how the brain transmits information, their research highlights a new target for drug development. The findings are published in the journal Nature Structural & Molecular Biology.
Balancing kainate receptor activity is the key to maintaining normal brain function. For example, in epilepsy, kainate activity is thought to be excessive. Thus, drugs which would shut down this activity are expected to be beneficial.
Researchers at McGill University have found that sodium - the main chemical component in table salt - is a unique "on/off" switch for a major neurotransmitter receptor in the brain. This receptor, known as the kainate receptor, is fundamental for normal brain function and is implicated in numerous diseases, such as epilepsy and neuropathic pain.
Prof. Derek Bowie and his laboratory in McGill's Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, worked with University of Oxford researchers to make the discovery. By offering a different view of how the brain transmits information, their research highlights a new target for drug development. The findings are published in the journal Nature Structural & Molecular Biology.
Balancing kainate receptor activity is the key to maintaining normal brain function. For example, in epilepsy, kainate activity is thought to be excessive. Thus, drugs which would shut down this activity are expected to be beneficial.
Findings challenge conventional thinking about possible causes of disorder.
Alzheimer's disease has proven to be a difficult enemy to defeat. After all, aging is the No. 1 risk factor for the disorder, and there's no stopping that.
Most researchers believe the disease is caused by one of two proteins, one called tau, the other beta-amyloid. As we age, most scientists say, these proteins either disrupt signaling between neurons or simply kill them.
Now, a new UCLA study suggests a third possible cause: iron accumulation.
Dr. George Bartzokis, a professor of psychiatry at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA and senior author of the study, and his colleagues looked at two areas of the brain in patients with Alzheimer's. They compared the hippocampus, which is known to be damaged early in the disease, and the thalamus, an area that is generally not affected until the late stages. Using sophisticated brain-imaging techniques, they found that iron is increased in the hippocampus and is associated with tissue damage in that area. But increased iron was not found in the thalamus.
The research appears in the August edition of the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease.
Alzheimer's disease has proven to be a difficult enemy to defeat. After all, aging is the No. 1 risk factor for the disorder, and there's no stopping that.
Most researchers believe the disease is caused by one of two proteins, one called tau, the other beta-amyloid. As we age, most scientists say, these proteins either disrupt signaling between neurons or simply kill them.
Now, a new UCLA study suggests a third possible cause: iron accumulation.
Dr. George Bartzokis, a professor of psychiatry at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA and senior author of the study, and his colleagues looked at two areas of the brain in patients with Alzheimer's. They compared the hippocampus, which is known to be damaged early in the disease, and the thalamus, an area that is generally not affected until the late stages. Using sophisticated brain-imaging techniques, they found that iron is increased in the hippocampus and is associated with tissue damage in that area. But increased iron was not found in the thalamus.
The research appears in the August edition of the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease.
Comment: "In fact, the safety of aspartame is supported by more than 200 studies over the last 40 years." Really?! Talk about serious media propaganda! It is obvious that the 200 studies the ad refers to does NOT include the following, seriously negative data, about the multiple health risks of aspartame:
Aspartame: Toxicology
Aspartame: The Politics of Food
ASPARTAME - The Silent Killer
Aspartame Can Mess Up Your Body and Brain
The shocking story of how Aspartame became legal
Aspartame: Safety Approved In 90 Nations, But Damages Brain
Does Aspartame Cause Human Brain Cancer? (Hint: Yes!)
The Deadly Neurotoxin Nearly EVERYONE Uses Daily (VIDEO)
Aspartame consumption strongly associated with migraines and seizures
A Dangerous Spin On The Cancer Risks Of Sugar-Free Sweeteners
Aspartame A Risk To Public Health: Made from Genetically Modified Bacteria Waste
America's Deadliest Sweetener Betrays Millions, Then Hoodwinks You With Name Change
Propaganda Warning! Expert panel, funded by a major maker of aspartame, says, 'Aspartame is safe'
Aspartame linked to leukemia and lymphoma: only one diet soda per day significantly increases risks
New York Psychiatrist Exhorts FDA to Rescind Artificial Sweetener Aspartame Approval