Children who are exposed to polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), which were commonly used in a range of industrial products, could be at risk of an increase in asthma symptoms, according to new research.

The study will be presented in a poster discussion September 2, 2012 at the European Respiratory Society's Annual Congress in Vienna.

PCBs were regularly used between 1930s and 1970s in a range of electrical equipment, lubricants and paint additives. They were eventually phased out due to the harm they were causing to the environment and animals.

Although they are not widely used now, the toxic substance does not break down easily. It can be transported in water and air and it can exist in the environment, particularly at waste sites, for a number of years.

Researchers from the University of Queensland in Australia examined 240 children to assess the impact PCBs are having on asthma symptoms. They measured the levels of PCBs found in their blood, along with three pesticides, and also assessed prevalence of wheeze, a common symptom of asthma.

The research, presented Monday (Sept. 3, 2012) at the European Respiratory Society's Annual Congress in Vienna, has provided new evidence suggesting a connection between the two conditions.

Overactive bladder syndrome is characterised by an increased frequency to urinate along with incontinence and frequent awakening periods during night time to use the toilet (nocturia). The need to urinate during the night is also a common symptom of sleep apnea, but little research has been carried out to investigate any links between the two conditions.

Researchers from the Hospital del Mar in Barcelona, Spain, analysed 72 female patients referred to a sleep disorders clinic with suspected sleep apnea. All patients completed a questionnaire asking them about four symptoms associated with their bladder control; urgency and frequency of urination, incontinence and nocturia. They were also asked to rate their discomfort with each of these symptoms.

There are more health myths propagated by the media and conventional medicine today than there ever have been throughout history. In large part, this is due to a lack of public education and a broadening of the corporate powers who promote myths to achieve very specific and malicious goals all in the name of profit.

Myth #1
Conventional medicine and the healthcare system helps sick people.

Perhaps the biggest health myth today is the public's misconception that mainstream medicine and the healthcare system helps sick people. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The freedom of people to choose natural healing, alternative medicine and methods of disease prevention could soon be threatened by corporate lobbyists who will do anything to protect their wealth at the expense of your health.

Promoters of conventional medicine claim that all the drug studies, approvals, surgical procedures, all other treatments are based on scientific evidence. But is it really science? What passes for "science" today is a collection of health myths, half-truths, intellectual dishonesty and fraudulent reporting to help serve higher interests. Science is not really science anymore.

90 percent of all diseases (cancer, diabetes, depression, heart disease, etc.) are easily preventable through diet, nutrition, sunlight and exercise. None of these solutions are ever promoted by conventional medicine because they make no money.

No pharmaceuticals actually cure or resolve the underlying causes of disease. Even "successful" drugs only manage symptoms, usually at the cost of interfering with other physiological functions that will cause side effects down the road. There is no such thing as a drug without a side effect.

There is no financial incentive for anyone in today's system of medicine (drug companies, hospitals, doctors, etc.) to actually make patients well. Profits are found in continued sickness, not wellness or prevention.

Almost all the "prevention" programs you see today (such as free mammograms or other screening programs) are nothing more than patient recruitment schemes designed to increase revenue and sickness. They use free screenings to scare people into agreeing to unnecessary treatments that only lead to further disease. Mammography is a very good example. Chemotherapy is another.

Nobody has any interest in your health except you. No corporation, no doctor, and no government has any desire to actually make you well. This has served the short-term financial interests of higher powers in the west very well. The only healthy, aware, critically thinking individuals are all 100% free of pharmaceuticals and processed foods.

Sugar junkies take note: a calorific diet isn't just bad for your body, it may also trigger Alzheimer's disease

SUZANNE DE LA MONTE's rats were disoriented and confused. Navigating their way around a circular water maze - a common memory test for rodents - they quickly forgot where they were, and couldn't figure out how to locate the hidden, submerged safety platform. Instead, they splashed around aimlessly. "They were demented. They couldn't learn or remember," says de la Monte, a neuropathologist at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.

A closer look at her rats' brains uncovered devastating damage. Areas associated with memory were studded with bright pink plaques, like rocks in a climbing wall, while many neurons, full to bursting point with a toxic protein, were collapsing and crumbling. As they disintegrated, they lost their shape and their connections with other neurons, teetering on the brink of death.

Such changes are the hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease, and yet they arose in surprising circumstances. De la Monte had interfered with the way the rats' brains respond to insulin. The hormone is most famous for controlling blood sugar levels, but it also plays a key role in brain signalling. When de la Monte disrupted its path to the rats' neurons, the result was dementia.

Doctors have long recognized a link between alcoholism and anxiety disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Those who drink heavily are at increased risk for traumatic events like car accidents and domestic violence, but that only partially explains the connection. New research using mice reveals heavy alcohol use actually rewires brain circuitry, making it harder for alcoholics to recover psychologically following a traumatic experience.

"There's a whole spectrum to how people react to a traumatic event," said study author Thomas Kash, PhD, assistant professor of pharmacology at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. "It's the recovery that we're looking at - the ability to say 'this is not dangerous anymore.' Basically, our research shows that chronic exposure to alcohol can cause a deficit with regard to how our cognitive brain centers control our emotional brain centers."

The study, which was published online on Sept. 2, 2012 by the journal Nature Neuroscience, was conducted by scientists at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) and UNC's Bowles Center for Alcohol Studies.

"A history of heavy alcohol abuse could impair a critical mechanism for recovering from a trauma, and in doing so put people at greater risk for PTSD," said NIAAA scientist Andrew Holmes, PhD, the study's senior author. "The next step will be to test whether our preclinical findings translate to patients currently suffering from comorbid PTSD and alcohol abuse. If it does, then this could lead to new thinking about how we can better treat these serious medical conditions."

The German company that developed a drug which resulted in thousands of congenital birth defects in the 1950s and 1960s issued their first ever apology on Friday, but those impacted by the medication's side-effects say that the statement was too long in coming and fell short of making amends for the harm caused.

The drug in question, a sedative known as thalidomide that was marketed as a treatment for morning sickness in pregnant women, was manufactured by the Gruenenthal Group of Aachen, Germany, according to Frank Jordans of the Associated Press (AP).

However, the medication, which was sold under the brand name of Contergan in Germany, resulted in a wave of birth defects, leaving thousands of infants with shortened arms and legs, or no limbs whatsoever, upon birth. Reuters reporter Annika Breidthardt said that an estimated 10,000 children were affected.

Speaking during a ceremony unveiling a commemorative statue at the city of Stolberg on Friday, Gruenethal Chief Executive Harald Stock said that he and his company wanted "to take this opportunity to express our deep regret over the consequences of Contergan and our deep sympathy for the victims, their mothers and families."

"We also ask for forgiveness for not reaching out to you from human to human for almost 50 years," he added. "We ask that you see our long speechlessness as a sign of the silent shock that your fate has caused us."

A new type of geranium, genetically engineered to be long-lived and lack pollen, offers the promise of sneeze-free plants for allergy sufferers.

Researchers in Spain have used a genetically modified bacterium to "infect" geraniums, creating plants that are not able to spread allergens nor reproduce with wild plants - a handy modification to prevent so-called "transgenic" plants from contaminating natural stock, said study researcher Luis Cañas, a scientist at the Instituto de Biología Molecular y Celular de Plantas (IBMCP) in Spain.

"These biotechnological approaches could be used in other ornamental or crop species," Cañas told LiveScience.

The researchers chose to modify Pelargonium plants, flowering shrubs known colloquially as geraniums or storkbills.

These plants have long been selectively bred for traits such as colorful flowers, but Cañas and his colleagues wanted to bestow long life on the plants. They also wanted to make them sterile, removing their ability to produce pollen.

"The lack of pollen not only is great for hay fever sufferers, but also prevents accidental release of the transgenes into the environment," Cañas said.

GMO foods could make it worse.

Testosterone deficiency is a serious health issue. It can lead to loss of stamina and lean muscle mass, reduced libido in both men and women, anxiety, depression, and cognitive decline. Growing research also suggests low testosterone levels might be linked to insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome, and type 2 diabetes.

Many of the herbicides and pesticides used in conventional farming are "environmental estrogens." This means that their molecules mimic the activity of the human hormone estrogen, too much of which is not good for men or women; it also affects testosterone levels. Now GMO crops have likely exacerbated this problem. According to a recent animal study published in the journal Toxicology in Vitro, glyphosate (the active ingredient in Roundup, Monsanto's widely used pesticide) often leaves a residue on Roundup Ready crops - and this can affect testosterone levels and men's sperm counts. It is actually toxic to testicle cells, and significantly lowers testosterone synthesis.

In addition, GMOs themselves may cause infertility. In a brand new Russian study on hamsters, scientists observed that consumption of GM soybeans tended to slow their sexual maturation process and completely eliminated their ability to reproduce within just a few generations. An Austrian study uncovered similar infertility in third-generation mice that consumed GM corn.

A growing body of clinical research now indicates that the cholesterol-lowering class of drugs known as statins, is associated with over 300 adverse health effects -- research boldly flying in the face of national health policy, medical insurance premium guidelines, statin drug manufacturer advertising claims, and the general sentiment of the public, with approximately 1 in every 4 adult Americans over 45 currently using these drugs to "prevent heart disease."

The Cholesterol Myth

For well over 40 years, statin drugs have successfully concretized a century-old myth about the primary cause of heart disease: namely, that cholesterol "causes" plaque build up in the arteries, ultimately leading to obstruction of blood flow, and subsequent morbidity and mortality.

Indeed, the medical establishment and drug companies have been singing the praises of this "cholesterol myth," to the tune of 25 billion dollars in statin drug sales, annually.

While it is true that oxidized low-density lipoprotein is found within the atheromatous plaque that is found in damaged arteries, it is less likely a cause than an effect of heart disease. The underlying damage to the lining of the artery, which could be infectious, chemical, stress and/or nutritionally-related, comes before the immune response that results in plaque buildup there. Blaming LDL cholesterol for causing heart disease, is like blaming the scab for the injury that caused it to form, or, like blaming the band-aid for the scab it is covering -- this is, after all, the inborn and fatal flaw of allopathic medicine which focuses only on symptoms of disease, which it then -- fool-heartedly -- attempts to suppress by any chemical means necessary.

A renowned UK professor is calling for all people over 50 to get on statins - cholesterol lowering and heart disease drugs like Lipitor and Crestor. Actually, Sir Rory Collins wants healthy and younger people on them too and wishes that "safety watchdogs" would stop accentuating the side effects.

Not only does this call come after more negative resulting studies on statin drugs, but this isn't the first time a strong suggestion has been issued. Not too long ago an AMA mouthpiece suggested adding them to the water supply! And he wasn't the first one to want them in our drinking water. Mainstream media quickly jumped on the bandwagon to echo such a "Communist plot." A strong call to make that change appears in a video here. Before that, the American Journal of Cardiology wanted statins added as condiments with fast food items - to conveniently continue eating heart-damaging foods. They already are added into polypills automatically given to people who reach mid-life.

The CDC already reported that approximately one in four people over age 45 take statins compared with one in 50 as of just 15 years ago. Another widely published study implored the same "everyone over 50 on statins, healthy or not" message back in May. As early as 2008, doctors were wanting children as young as eight on them - wow, they really want us on these pills! Is this how a Brave New World begins?