• His Royal Highness makes heartfelt plea to medical profession
• NHS should foster climate of care and compassion, he says
• Intervention follows series of appalling cases highlighted by the Daily Mail

The Health Service must learn to listen to its patients and be more caring, Prince Charles said yesterday.

Modern medicine and technology are putting the 'human touch' at risk, according to the heir to the throne.

In a heartfelt plea, he said medical schools should try to foster a climate of care and compassion among doctors.

Charles's intervention follows a series of reports of appalling treatment by NHS staff, including dying patients left screaming for water.

He called on doctors and nurses to heed what patients say so they can develop the 'healing empathy' so badly needed.

Writing in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, the prince set out a vision apparently in response to studies showing many patients feel ignored.

He said: 'In the individual encounter between patient and clinician, we are led to believe that there is currently a "crisis in caring". I am sure that this is not the case in many or most such encounters.

'Nevertheless, I am equally sure that there is much more that can be done to foster and enhance those age-old qualities of human kindness and compassion.

'The media is full of instances where these have been palpably lacking, and I have heard of others speaking of the need to restore urgently a climate of care and compassion at the heart of our health services.'

Last month, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said there was a 'kind of normalisation of cruelty' in the worst hospitals, with patients too often subjected to coldness, resentment, indifference and even contempt.

Ann Clwyd, Labour MP for Cynon Valley, broke down when describing how her husband of 49 years, Owen Roberts, 'died like a battery hen' in October after being admitted to the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff.

Regulators with the FDA have released a preliminary report that suggests they will soon give the go-ahead to a team of scientists who've created a sci-fi "frankenfish."

On Friday, the US Food and Drug Administration released an environmental assessment report regarding a salmon-hybrid developed in the laboratories of AquaBounty. The FDA must wait two months before they make final their decision regarding the fate of the frankenfish, but through their study they have determined that the genetically engineered animal, the "AquAdvantage," is safe enough to be sold.

The fish, a hybrid of the Pacific Chinook salmon and a ray-finned creature called the eelpout, is engineered to grow twice as normal as traditional salmon. Once the frankenfish is approved for good, AquaBounty will be able to offer meatier fish able to feed more people.

"In all other respects," the company says the AquAdvantage fish is "identical to other Atlantic salmon."

The AquAdvantage "will not have any significant impacts on the quality of the human environment of the United States," the FDA wrote, noting additionally that the fish is unlikely to harm populations of natural salmon.

The FDA has 60 days to hear remarks from the public before it makes its final decision. At this point, though, experts weighing in with the Associated Press say the report suggests an approval is all but certain. From there, AquaBounty is likely to release what will be the first genetically engineered animal ever determined safe for human consumption. With no other such animal ever approved in the past, though, concerns have been plentiful over what consequences the creature could spawn.

Scientists at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, in collaboration with colleagues in Germany and the Netherlands, have identified a previously unknown group of nerve cells in the brain. The nerve cells regulate cardiovascular functions such as heart rhythm and blood pressure. It is hoped that the discovery, which is published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, will be significant in the long term in the treatment of cardiovascular diseases in humans.

The scientists have managed to identify in mice a previously totally unknown group of nerve cells in the brain. These nerve cells, also known as 'neurons', develop in the brain with the aid of thyroid hormone, which is produced in the thyroid gland. Patients in whom the function of the thyroid gland is disturbed and who therefore produce too much or too little thyroid hormone, thus risk developing problems with these nerve cells. This in turn has an effect on the function of the heart, leading to cardiovascular disease.

It is well-known that patients with untreated hyperthyroidism (too high a production of thyroid hormone) or hypothyroidism (too low a production of thyroid hormone) often develop heart problems. It has previously been believed that this was solely a result of the hormone affecting the heart directly. The new study, however, shows that thyroid hormone also affects the heart indirectly, through the newly discovered neurons.

Before he became Hermann Goering to George Bush Jr., Rumsfeld oversaw the release of poisonous aspartame into the food supply. Even then, it was KNOWN that there were serious side-effects...Before he became Hermann Goering to George Bush Jr., Rumsfeld oversaw the release of poisonous aspartame into the food supply. Even then, it was KNOWN that there were serious side-effects...Artificial sweeteners such as saccharin and aspartame have the 'promise' of being better than sugar for weight control because, although sweet, they contain virtually no calories. It's a nice theory, though the reality is I cannot find one single properly conducted (randomised, controlled) study in humans exists in the scientific literature to support this. Now, there's only two potential explanations for this. Either such studies have not been done, or one or more studies have been done but have not been published.

I actually don't know which of these is the truth, but I am aware of previous research in animals which suggests that artificial sweeteners are not all they're cracked up to be. In one study, rats were fed with either saccharin or sugar-sweetened yoghurt in conjunction with their normal diet [1]. Compared to those eating sugar-sweetened yoghurt, the rats eating saccharin-laced yoghurt consumed more calories and got fatter too. The authors of this study concluded that "...using artificial sweeteners in rats resulted in increased caloric intake, increased body weight, and increased adiposity [fatness]", adding that "These results suggest that consumption of products containing artificial sweeteners may lead to increased body weight and obesity by interfering with fundamental homeostatic, physiological processes".

No one will argue the fact that heroin, morphine, and pain killers are highly addictive substances. They become addictive due to their ability to suppress pain, reduce anxiety, and can even cause us to have a higher sense of joy. There is another opiate that most of us consume on a daily basis that may be just as addicting, and that is sugar.

Opioid receptors are located in the brain and the spinal column. They are 7 transmembrane-spanning, G protein-coupled receptors. They are responsible for aiding neurotransmitters and hormones, the most well known being our endorphins. Addictive substances work by enacting upon these receptor sites (Waldhoer, 2004). To further understand this, let us look at heroin addiction.

Basically, heroin increases the amount of dopamine. Dopamine is the neurotransmitter responsible for energy, memory, and focus. Our system has a checks and balances process. When dopamine is released, we also release GABA to counteract it. The problem with heroin is it enacts upon the opioid receptor responsible for GABA. This disallows GABA to do its job. We are then left with a dopamine surge left unbalanced. This brings about sustained energy and feelings of euphoria. Here is a link that explains it in a little further detail and also has a chart for any visual learners. If we are dopamine deficient, this can lead to addiction according to Kenneth Blum's Reward Deficiency Syndrome.

High sugar foods can cause similar reactions as what we see with heroin. Excessive amounts of sugar (as well as fat) can lead to the release of increased amounts of dopamine. This is the same as with heroin (Avena, 2009). Sugar also inhibits the release of GABA from pancreatic beta cells (Wang, 2005). The pancreatic beta cells also release insulin, so this mechanism is important for a couple of reasons. GABA being released from those pancreatic cells shows that it may play a role in regulating insulin. Also, GABA needs to be released to balance out the dopamine. This could lead to diabetes and weight gain.

For over two million years, the Homo species has been a scavenger and gatherer, then a hunter and gatherer.

Homo evolved from the Australopithecines in eastern Africa, east of the Great Rift Valley. Some 4 million years ago, 4-foot tall Australopithecines, with prognathic snouts, small 450 cc brains, but the first bipedal (upright) primate, started spending less time in the trees and more on the ground, consuming a nearly pure vegetarian diet, existing on a wide variety of wild plants. They likely had large colons and smaller small intestines to accommodate the large quantity of bowel flora required to digest the otherwise indigestible polysaccharide fibers of their diet.

The first hominid that most anthropologists regard as the first Homo species was Homo habilis with slightly larger brains than Australopithecus, upright bipedal gait, a probable scavenger of animals. They likely observed the true predators, the ones with big canine teeth and claws like lions and leopards, tackle other animals, successfully killing and consuming them. After these predators were sated, Homo habilis noticed that the skull containing the brain and the bones containing edible marrow remained, along with whatever other fragments remained. Our Homo ancestors therefore scavenged what the true predators left behind. We learned that stones were useful tools to crack open the skull to access the brain, or to get the marrow in the bones.

Doctors make careless and dangerous errors, like leaving a scalpel in someone's body after surgery, surprisingly often, a new study finds.

The analysis, published Dec. 19 in the journal Surgery, used malpractice records to find instances in which surgeons operated on the wrong patient or part of the body, or left objects inside the patient after surgery.

Compared to other medical errors, the rate of such of such mistakes in the United States is very low. Still, the study found doctors leave towels, cotton balls, sponges and other surgical equipment inside patients' bodies about 39 times a week, on average. Doctors operate on the wrong body part 20 times a week and the wrong patient, also 20 times a week.

(Those numbers were extrapolated to the whole U.S. population based on statistics found in the malpractice sample.)

The study's findings likely underestimate the actual occurrence, however. "What we describe in a study is the low end of the range. There are definitely more of these occurring," said study co-author Dr. Marty Makary, a surgeon at Johns Hopkins Medical Center and the author of a book about hospital dysfunction called Unaccountable (Bloomsbury Press, 2012).

No, that is not a typo. A South Korean SBS TV documentary accused Chinese pharmaceutical companies in 2011 of selling "stamina pills" that contain ground up dead babies.

The report claims that certain hospitals and abortion clinics sell baby corpses to the companies, who then use their bodies to grind up for their stamina pill ingredients. The team ran a DNA test, and found that the pills were 99.7 percent human. They were even able to tell the gender of the baby.

Babies Left to Die, Ground up into Pills

According to the documentary, Chinese hospitals and abortion clinics give stillborns and aborted babies to drug companies, but reports suggest that some of these remains even come from China's infamous "dying rooms."

These are places in which babies are left intentionally to perish when families cannot - or, for the legal limit of having only one child lest a fee or even a physical beating be incurred by officials, will not - raise them. Chinese hospitals perform about 13 million abortions annually to keep its enormous population in check.

A vitamin D deficiency can be attributed to a number of serious health conditions such as breast cancer, depression, rheumatoid arthritis and brittle bones. But that isn't all.

Research has found even more links between vitamin D deficiency and compromised health.

The researchers concluded that lower than normal vitamin D levels can lead to muscle-related injuries in athletes and plaque build-up in the brain associated with Alzheimer's disease.

Vitamin D and Muscle Injury

When data from professional football players was reviewed by researchers, it was found that over three-fourths of the athletes had insufficient vitamin D levels.

Researchers collected information from 89 players with an average age of 25. Vitamin D levels were measured, and muscle injuries were recorded throughout the season.

The TSA's naked body scanners have created mass congestion and humiliation within every major airport at which they are installed, but leading radiation experts say that they are also causing mass waves of cancer - the exact number of which is impossible to calculate. You may or may not remember, but in November of last year a bombshell report linking the scanners to cancer actually led to a TSA press response in which they promised to re-test the scanners through independent trials.

As you may have guessed, they of course decided not to proceed with the testing after promising to do so. If they had actually done so, of course, then it would reveal to travels just how much radiation they are being blasted with when travelling through the 'harmless' scanners.

It was actually back in 1998 that radiation experts, much like one leading radiation expert I spoke with in a video below, actually projected that the scanners were causing cancer deaths thanks to the emission of radiation. This of course was back in 1998, long before the widespread usage of the scanners. With these machines being rolled out nationwide and having millions pass through each year, the estimate of 100 or so deaths per year back in 1998 can actually be expanded to the thousands (if not more). Even John Hopkins scientists warned similarly that the scanners can wreak havoc on the body.