Nearly one in five high school age boys in the United States and 11 percent of school-age children over all have received a medical diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, according to new data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

These rates reflect a marked rise over the last decade and could fuel growing concern among many doctors that the A.D.H.D. diagnosis and its medication are overused in American children.

The figures showed that an estimated 6.4 million children ages 4 through 17 had received an A.D.H.D. diagnosis at some point in their lives, a 16 percent increase since 2007 and a 41 percent rise in the past decade. About two-thirds of those with a current diagnosis receive prescriptions for stimulants like Ritalin or Adderall, which can drastically improve the lives of those with A.D.H.D. but can also lead to addiction, anxiety and occasionally psychosis.

"Those are astronomical numbers. I'm floored," said Dr. William Graf, a pediatric neurologist in New Haven and a professor at the Yale School of Medicine. He added, "Mild symptoms are being diagnosed so readily, which goes well beyond the disorder and beyond the zone of ambiguity to pure enhancement of children who are otherwise healthy."

Que Choisir, the Western European nonprofit consumer association (whose name in English means What to Choose), published in its April magazine issue a cover story on cosmetics and hygiene products it claims contain endocrine disrupters.

For the coverage, the organization analyzed 66 items and said it discovered such substances that may affect the endocrine system - which is responsible for making and releasing hormones - in preservatives, sun filters, emollients and antibacterial agents, for instance.

Que Choisir said it found "record concentrations" of endocrine disrupters in products such as Nivea's Dry Comfort and Fresh Natural 48H deodorants and Water Lily & Oil shower gel. In Neutrogena Hand & Nail Cream, Nivea Aqua Sensation moisturizer and Labello lip balm it noted "elevated concentrations."

The story appeared prior to the European Commission publishing its strategy on endocrine disrupters, which will likely take place in May, according to an EC spokesman.

Tyler Trovato loves his peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with a glass of milk, but if he diverges from that and only a handful of other foods, the 6-year-old goes into a fit of vomiting and lethargy so severe that he has to go to the emergency room.

The St. James, N.Y., first-grader is allergic to just about everything else -- chicken, turkey, rice, sweet potatoes and bananas, among others. As an infant, he was even allergic to his mother's breast milk and she was a vegetarian.


Since he was 18 months old he has to be hospitalized before he can try a new food.

If he ingests a food he is allergic to, Tyler begins to have stomach pains about two to four hours after ingestion and then vomits, sometimes so violently he bleeds. Diarrhea follows and a then a shock-like response.

"He becomes pale, lethargic, doesn't talk and usually stumbles when he walks," said his mother, Jennifer Trovato, 37. "When he reacts he needs fluids. The hospital usually gives him saline, steroids and sometimes Benadryl. He doesn't require an epi-pen but his allergic reaction can be life threatening."

Fish oil rich in DHA and EPA is widely believed to help prevent disease by reducing inflammation, but until now, scientists were not entirely sure about its immune enhancing effects. A new report appearing in the April 2013 issue of the Journal of Leukocyte Biology, helps provide clarity on this by showing that DHA-rich fish oil enhances B cell activity, a white blood cell, challenging the notion that fish oil is only immunosuppressive. This discovery is important as it shows that fish oil does not necessarily reduce the overall immune response to lower inflammation, possibly opening the doors for the use of fish oil among those with compromised immune systems.

"Fish oil may have immune enhancing properties that could benefit immunocompromised individuals," said Jenifer Fenton, Ph.D., M.P.H., a researcher involved in the work from the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan.

Medications used to treat gastroesophageal reflux disease, or GERD, are some of the most widely used medications in children less than one year old.

But in a new study, researchers from the University of Michigan and the University of Missouri concluded that physicians often label common symptoms in infants, such as crying and spitting up, as disease. Frequent use of the GERD label can lead to overuse of medication, according to study published today online ahead of print in the journal Pediatrics.

The study found that doctors' use of the label GERD prompted parents to request medication for their baby even when they had been advised that the medication would probably be ineffective.

For two decades, starting with the controversial introduction of Monsanto's recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH) and Calgene's Flavr Savr tomato in 1994, polls have consistently shown that U.S. consumers are wary, indeed alarmed, about the new technology of genetic engineering (GE). Surveyed regularly, the overwhelming majority of Americans have repeatedly stated that they either want these "Frankenfoods" banned, or at least clearly labeled.

In a March 2012 national poll, conducted by the Mellman Group, 91% of Americans said they wanted GMO foods labeled. When asked whether gene-altered foods were safe, 34% of consumers said they believed that gene-altered foods were definitely unsafe; 41% said they were not sure; while 41% said genetically engineered foods should be banned.

Five counties and two cities in California and Washington have banned the growing of GE crops. In addition, given the near total absence of FDA regulation, 19 states have passed laws restricting Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs).

Millions of consumers are purchasing over $30 billion of organic foods, and $60 billion worth of so-called "natural" foods, every year, in part because organic standards prohibit the use of gene-altered seeds or ingredients. But many consumers believe mistakenly that "natural" foods are GE-free as well.

President Barack Obama signed a spending bill, HR 933, into law, the "Monsanto Protection Act," that strips federal courts of the authority to immediately halt the planting and sale of genetically modified (GMO) seed crop regardless of any consumer health concerns.

"The provision would strip federal courts of the authority to halt the sale and planting of an illegal, potentially hazardous GE crop while the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) assesses those potential hazards," explains a letter to the House that has been signed by dozens of food businesses and retailers, as well as interest groups and agencies representing family farmers. "Further, it would compel USDA to allow continued planting of that same crop upon request, even if in the course of its assessment the Department finds that it poses previously unrecognized risks."

Why does Monsanto and other GMO companies need this protection? The corolary question is has there ever been a safe, healthy, non-complicated genetically modified organism?

Who would have guessed that second-hand cigarette smoke could have a surprising health benefit? Or that tobacco, long dismissed as unhealthy, might have some healing benefits, even playing a role in a new dietary supplement? Medicine and health technology are full of surprises sometimes.

In 2004, Dr. Paul Ladenson, Director of the Division of Endocrinology at Johns Hopkins, conducted a study among a group of flight attendants and found reduction of thyroiditis/Hashimoto's Disease related to inhalation of second hand cigarette smoke. That discovery started the ball rolling toward the development of a anti-inflammatory supplement called Anatabloc, the key ingredient of which is the anatabine compound, one of the 4,000 chemical components of tobacco. Anatabine is a naturally-occuring alkaloid also found in eggplants, peppers, green tomatoes, potatoes, and a variety of other plants in the Solanaceae (nightshade) family, including Nicotiana, the Latin term for tobacco.

Armed with this information, entrepreneur Jonnie Williams was motivated to formulate Anatabloc, a dietary supplement that works by inhibiting pro-inflammatory pathways to help the body maintain lower levels of inflammation. Anatabloc combines one milligram of anatabine with 500 units of Vitamin A and 40 units of Vitamin D3; pre-clinical studies have shown that this combination may inhibit pro-inflammatory pathways to help maintain lower levels of inflammation and promote a healthy anti-inflammatory response.
The thinking behind the formulation of Anatabloc is that chronic low-level inflammation contributes to many disorders such as coronary artery disease, diabetes, asthma, autoimmune thyroid disease, and rheumatoid arthritis, so Anatabloc is marketed as a potential preventative treatment for these diseases. Anatabloc requires no prescription; the recommended dosage is two tablets or lozenges taken sublingually three times daily for best results. (The manufacturer also markets Anatabloc skin care products).

Studies have shown that autoimmune thyroid disease can appear - or even worsen - in the period after someone quits smoking (remember, though, the benefits of quitting smoking always outweigh any side effects of quitting, especially for patients with Graves' disease and thyroid eye disease). Theoretically, it could be the absence of the anatabine in the cigarettes that may be the key factor in this mystery.

An impossibly long string of DNA letters floats inside each of our trillions of cells. Somehow, incredibly, that one string produces a huge variety of tiny biological machines, from red blood cells that carry oxygen, to brown fat cells that generate heat, to neurons that fire electrical messages. How does one* fixed code manage all that?

The answer is, it's not fixed. There's epigenetics: In response to changes in the environment, stuff (chemicals and proteins) interacts with the DNA and affects how the code is interpreted. For example, a methyl group (one carbon and three hydrogen atoms) can latch on to the genome and help switch on or off the expression of the genes below. So in fat cells, say, some suite of genes is methylated, but in brain cells, it's a different group of genes.

Until fairly recently, research on this so-called DNA methylation focused on places in the DNA code where a G immediately follows a C - CpG sites - which are known hotspots of methylation. When hundreds or thousands of CpG sites appear in a row, it's called a CpG island, and this intense methylation usually silences the underlying gene. But in the past few years, DNA sequencing technology has allowed researchers to look at methylation patterns not just at the glittering islands, but across the entire genome.