Health & WellnessS


Ambulance

Health Authorities Now Admit Severe Side Effects of Vaccination: Swine Flu, Pandemrix and Narcolepsy

Karin Munsterhjelm-Ahumada, M.D.
Orthomolecular Medicine News Service
Tue, 20 Mar 2012 10:06 UTC
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The swine flu pandemic of 2009 was caused by a type A influenza (H1N1) virus. This virus was originally referred to as "swine flu" because many of the genes of this new virus were very similar to influenza viruses that normally occur in pigs in North America. The H1N1 virus is genetically similar to the 1918 pandemic virus, as determined from victimes of the latter who were buried, and later disinterred, in Svalbard. It was responsible for most of the outbreaks up until 1956 and then disappeared.

However, this new virus was actually quite different from the typical swine flu viruses. This virus first caused illness in Mexico and the United States in March and April, 2009. This novel H1N1 flu spread from person to person, unlike typical swine flu. In 2009 vaccines were being developed for the prevention of swine flu in humans.

On 11 June 2009, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared that the swine flu had developed into a full scale world epidemic - a pandemic alert to Phase 6. Margaret Chan, the Director-General of WHO, commented on the situation in a somewhat ambiguous way. While stressing that the swine flu had reached a serious pandemic level, she declared later in the same statement that the illness seemed to be mild and that most of the patients would recover without medical intervention.

The world chose to listen to the first part of her message.
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Health

Are Migraine Headaches Caused by Gluten?


Gluten Free Society
Fri, 10 Feb 2012 19:11 UTC
Headaches and Food Triggers

In the past 10 years, I have treated hundreds of cases of migraine headaches in my clinic. Most recently, I met with a young lady who was having headaches so severe that she required hospitalization and IV medications to help control the pain.

In the large majority of patients, identifying food triggers have been a major factor in getting the headaches to resolve. In the case below, gluten played a big role in the genesis of headaches...
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Beaker

Diet Soda, the Silent Killer?

Tom Philpott
Mother Jones
Thu, 01 Mar 2012 17:40 UTC
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© Roadsidepictures/FlickrVintage diet sodas from the '60s and '70s
What is this thing called diet soda? Here are the ingredients of one of the best-selling brands, Diet Pepsi:
CARBONATED WATER, CARAMEL COLOR, ASPARTAME, PHOSPHORIC ACID, POTASSIUM BENZOATE (PRESERVES FRESHNESS), CAFFEINE, CITRIC ACID, NATURAL FLAVOR
My favorite line on that list is the "preserves freshness" that follows potassium benzoate. The freshness of what, precisely? The caramel color? Not likely - caramel color for most colas comes from a chemical reaction between sugar, ammonia, and sulfites at high temperatures. Or maybe it's the phosphoric acid? Or the least plentiful ingredient of all, the unspecified "natural flavor"? In plain English, diet soda is artificially blackened water tarted up with synthetic chemicals. That anyone ponies up cash for such a thing surely counts as one of the food industry's greatest marketing triumphs.

Comment: For a more in depth look at the authors claim that 'diet soda is the silent killer' read Tom Pilpott 's excellent article: Just How Bad is Aspartame?

It's Aspartame, Stupid! Diet soda tied to stroke risk, but reasons unclear
Study: Diet Soda Linked to Heart Risks
Symptoms: Metabolic Syndrome Is Tied to Diet Soda
Diet drinks 'lead to greater risk of heart attacks and strokes'

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Info

Why getting healthy can seem worse than getting sick


University of Chicago Press Journals
Tue, 20 Mar 2012 14:35 UTC
A new article in The Quarterly Review of Biology helps explain why the immune system often makes us worse while trying to make us well.

The research offers a new perspective on a component of the immune system known as the acute-phase response, a series of systemic changes in blood protein levels, metabolic function, and physiology that sometimes occurs when bacteria, viruses, or other pathogens invade the body. This response puts healthy cells and tissue under serious stress, and is actually the cause of many of the symptoms we associate with being sick.

"The question is why would these harmful components evolve," asks Edmund LeGrand (University of Tennessee, Knoxville), who wrote the paper titled with Joe Alcock (University of New Mexico). The researchers contend that answer becomes clear when we view the acute-phase response in terms of what they call "immune brinksmanship."
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Question

Mysterious nodding disease debilitates children, stumps experts


CNN
Tue, 20 Mar 2012 14:18 UTC
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© UnknownThomas often gnaws at the cloth to try to escape. Scientists from the World Health Organization and U.S.-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are trying to find the cause and the cure.
Pauline Oto still wears her faded yellow and green school dress, but she hasn't been to school for years and she can't comprehend what to do with the pen the community nurse has just given her.

"Write on my hand," says the nurse. Pauline just sits on the reed mat, her legs pulled to one side, and stares. She has just had an attack and can't speak. She struggles to comprehend her surroundings.

Pauline, 13, has been struck by the dreaded nodding disease. Her mother, Grace Lagat, says it will take her at least four hours to recover from the seizures, and after each attack she seems less like the daughter she remembers.

"Her personality has changed greatly from before. She was normal when they were born. Now she just moves around and serves no purpose," Lagat says.
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Health

Is Skin Pigment (Melanin) A Light-Harvesting Substance?

Sayer Ji
GreenMedInfo
Mon, 19 Mar 2012 18:00 UTC
Skin Pigment
© GreenMedInfo

While ubiquitous in nature, melanin, which provides the coloring found in hair, skin, eyes, feathers, scales, etc., is an especially important substance as far as the human condition is concerned. After all, melanin's role in determining skin color makes it the primary physiological basis for racial differentiation among humans. Entire civilizations, no doubt, have risen and fallen due to their conceptions (and misconceptions) about this pigment's effects on human behavior, to the point that the very notion of humanness itself has been called into question depending on how little or how much melanin a body possessed.

It is for this reason that melanin's lesser known, functional properties should be considered more closely. In fact, being more pigmented, i.e. darker skinned, or put oppositely, being less de-pigmented, may confer a unique set of health benefits which over the course of human history have been repressed or intentionally misrepresented in order to fuel the sociopolitical construct of race.

In biological science melanin is known to possess a diverse set of roles and functions in a wide range of organisms. These include:
  • Protection against biochemical attack: e.g. the smokeshield-like ink of the octopus, and the melanin-based protective colorings of bacteria and fungi which are capable of encapsulating and oxidizing invading organisms in a process known as melanization.
  • Mitigating chemical stresses associated with exposure to heavy metals and oxidizing agents.
  • Acting as a natural sunscreen: shielding light-sensitive tissue from the potentially damaging effects of ultraviolet light.
Melanin is capable of transforming ultraviolet light energy into heat in a process known as "ultrafast internal conversion"; more than 99.9% of the absorbed UV radiation is transformed from potentially genotoxic (DNA-damaging) ultraviolet light into harmless heat.
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Nuke

Radioactive Scrap Metal a Growing Global Health Risk

Jonathan Tirone and Andrew MacAskill
Bloomberg
Mon, 19 Mar 2012 10:22 UTC
BB&B shoppers
© Scott Eells/Bloomberg
Going shopping? Don't forget your wallet and credit card. Or Geiger counter.

The discovery of radioactive tissue boxes at Bed, Bath & Beyond Inc. (BBBY) stores in January raised alarms among nuclear security officials and company executives over the growing global threat of contaminated scrap metal.

While the U.S. home-furnishing retailer recalled the boutique boxes from 200 stores nationwide without any reports of injury, the incident highlighted one of the topics drawing world leaders to a nuclear security meeting in Seoul on March 26-27. The bi-annual summit, convened by President Barack Obama for the first time in 2010, seeks to stem the flow of atomic material that has been lost, stolen or discarded as trash.

As U.S. and European leaders tackle the proliferation of weapons-grade uranium or plutonium in countries like Iran and North Korea, industries are confronting the impact of loose nuclear material in an international scrap-metal market worth at least $140 billion, according to the Brussels-based Bureau of International Recycling. Radioactive items used to power medical, military and industrial hardware are melted down and used in goods, driving up company costs as they withdraw tainted products and threatening the public's health.

'Major Risk'

"The major risk we face in our industry is radiation," said Paul de Bruin, radiation-safety chief for Jewometaal Stainless Processing BV, one of the world's biggest stainless- steel scrap yards. "You can talk about security all you want, but I've found weapons-grade uranium in scrap. Where was the security?"
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Cookie

U.S. Study Finds Children Consuming Too Much Sugar

Nicholas Bakalar
New York Times
Mon, 19 Mar 2012 22:02 UTC
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Older children consume more sugar than younger ones do, boys consume more than girls, and white children consume more than black or Mexican-American children, according to a new report from the National Center for Health Statistics. And they all consume too much.

Researchers used data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, a continuous examination of a large cross-section of the American population. The survey includes interviews, physical examinations and laboratory tests of blood and urine. For this study, published on Feb. 29, researchers interviewed subjects about their food consumption over the previous 24 hours.
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Beaker

The Perils of Fracking: Environmental and Health Risks Greater Than Claimed by Gas Industry

Walter Brasch
Counterpunch
Mon, 19 Mar 2012 20:58 UTC
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Tap water in communities where fracking occurs is often flammable, a consequence of the toxic substances and contaminants that are injected into the ground during the fracking process.
The natural gas industry defends hydraulic fracturing, better known as fracking, as safe and efficient. Thomas J. Pyle, president of the Institute for Energy Research, a pro-industry non-profit organization, claims fracking has been "a widely deployed as safe extraction technique," dating back to 1949. What he doesn't say is that until recently energy companies had used low-pressure methods to extract natural gas from fields closer to the surface than the current high-pressure technology that extracts more gas, but uses significantly more water, chemicals, and elements.

The industry claims well drilling in the Marcellus Shale will bring several hundred thousand jobs, and has minimal health and environmental risk. President Barack Obama in his January 2012 State of the Union, said he believes the development of natural gas as an energy source to replace fossil fuels could generate 600,000 jobs.

However, research studies by economists Dr. Jannette M. Barth, Dr. Deborah Rogers, and others debunk the idea of significant job creation.

Barry Russell, president of the Independent Petroleum Association of America, says "no evidence directly connects injection of fracking fluid into shale with aquifer contamination." Fracking "has never been found to contaminate a water well," says Christine Cronkright, communications director for the Pennsylvania Department of Health.

Research studies and numerous incidents of water contamination prove otherwise.
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Health

Tooth Decay and Gluten Sensitivity - Is There a Connection?


Greenmedinfo.com
Mon, 19 Mar 2012 19:44 UTC
New Study Finds That Patients with Gluten Sensitivity Have Tooth Enamel Issues

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© Unknown
...antibodies against gliadin generated in patients with CD (celiac disease) can react in vitro with a major enamel protein. The involvement of anti-gliadin serum in the pathogenesis of enamel defects in children with untreated CD can be hypothesized on the basis of these novel results.
Research Source:

Eur J Oral Sci. 2012 Apr ;120(2):104-12.

In this research study, it was confirmed that gluten causes the body to produce an immune reaction against one of the main proteins responsible for producing enamel on the teeth. Lack of enamel leads to a variety of oral health problems including excessive cavities, excessive tooth ware and tear, and eventually the premature destruction or loss of teeth. It is no mystery that gluten proteins can negatively impact the health of the oral cavity. Even dentists are starting to take an active role in recognizing this problem.

Comment: For more information about the evils of gluten, see these Sott articles:

Gluten: What You Don't Know Might Kill You

Is gluten from grains making you sick?

Science Finally Confirms Gluten Sensitivity

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