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Four Reasons to Avoid High Fructose Corn Syrup

Sara Novak
Yahoo News
Mon, 20 Dec 2010 13:44 UTC
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© n/a
By now, you've more than likely seen one of the ads put out by the Corn Refiners Association. The ads tell the story of a "natural" sweetener made from corn. They go on to insinuate that high fructose corn syrup has been unfairly portrayed and that this truly American ingredient is fine in moderation.

Lloyd wrote about this massive $30 million ad campaign last year. The campaign claims that high fructose corn syrup has the "same natural sweeteners as table sugar and honey." Since then, the association has released a number of ads with the same message.

But when push comes to shove, what are the facts about high fructose corn syrup? How is it made? Is it healthy in moderation to the body and the planet? Here are the facts, so that the next time you're asked, you can confidently dispel any high fructose corn syrup rumors.

Comment: For more information about the negative health effects of High Fructose Corn Syrup read the following articles:

High-Fructose Corn Syrup is Evil: 7 Key Findings
How High Fructose Corn Syrup Damages Your Body
High Fructose Corn Syrup - The Poison that Promotes Obesity and Liver Damage
Soda and Food Warning! High-fructose Corn Syrup Linked To Diabetes, New Study Suggests
High fructose corn syrup is not 'natural', says FDA

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Health

Tumeric Health Benefits

Dr. Andrew Weil
Huffington Post
Tue, 28 Dec 2010 13:17 UTC
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Looking for a simple New Year's resolution for health? Add turmeric to your diet.

Turmeric (Curcuma longa) is a culinary spice, a major ingredient in Indian curries, and the source of American mustard's bright yellow color. Used as both medicine and food for centuries, accumulating evidence suggests that this relative of ginger is a promising preventive agent for a wide range of diseases, probably due largely to its anti-inflammatory properties.

The National Institutes of Health lists 24 current studies on the effects of turmeric and its chief active component, curcumin. Such studies raise the question of which is better to take: whole turmeric, generally used as a powdered spice with food; or curcumin, which is usually taken as a supplement? Each has been shown to have health benefits, but unless you have a specific condition such as inflammatory bowel disease, I favor using turmeric (especially in cooking) rather than taking curcumin pills. This reflects my general belief that, until proven otherwise in head to head studies, whole plants are usually a better choice than isolates. On the other hand, curcumin appears to have a more rapid and dramatic effect, and may be the better choice as a therapeutic (rather than a preventative) preparation.
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Better Earth

Water Crisis In Ireland: Tens Of Thousands Without Water, Doctors Warn Of Disease


Huffington Post
Wed, 29 Dec 2010 10:15 UTC
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© AP

Belfast, Northern Ireland - Frustration and fears of disease mounted in Northern Ireland Wednesday as 36,000 people were left without water, some for more than a week, after a deep freeze and a sudden thaw caused aging pipes to burst.

With reservoirs running low, water supplies were cut off in many towns and cities, and residents turned to emergency water tankers and bottled water for their cooking, cleaning and drinking needs.

Scotland said it was sending 160,000 liters (42,000 gallons) of bottled water to help meet demand.

Northern Ireland's Deputy First Minister, Martin McGuinness, called the situation "a grave crisis," and said people had been let down by their water supplier.
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Magnify

NOLA Lawyer Prepares Challenge to Declaration of Gulf Seafood's Safety

Stephen C. Webster
Raw Story
Tue, 28 Dec 2010 18:40 UTC
fresh gulf seafood sign
© unknown
An environmental law firm in New Orleans said it was preparing to challenge the government's public declaration that following the nation's worst-ever oil disaster, seafood from the Gulf of Mexico remained safe to eat.

Stuart H. Smith, Esq., of the law firm Smith Stag, LLC., was leading the charge, rallying additional litigants to his side through a website called Oil Spill Action.

He's the attorney who secured a verdict awarding over $1 billion over the radium contamination of leased land due to oil drilling.

"Mr. Smith's litigation experience includes a lawsuit against Ashland Oil for contaminating the Lee aquifer, once one of the largest sources of fresh water for residents in eastern Kentucky," his self-published bio claims. "He also sued Chevron Corporation for damages associated with that company's contamination of the groundwater in the rural town of Brookhaven, Mississippi. His firm also represents clients injured by chemicals and defective drugs."

One of the toxicologists on Smith's litigation team pursuing BP was Dr. William Sawyer, who Raw Story spoke with in November.

Even then, he was calling the Food and Drug Administration's safety test "little more than a farce."
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Pills

Opioid Risks: Codeine, Oxycodone, and Tramadol

Dr. Leo Galland
Pill Advised
Tue, 28 Dec 2010 15:43 UTC
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Opioids such as codeine and hydrocodone have been linked to more side effects for older adults with arthritis in comparison to analgesics such as non-steroidal anti-inflammatories (NSAID's) and coxibs, according to two recent studies from Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts. The rate of fractures among the patients studied, for example, was 101 per 1,000 opioid users per year, compared with 19 per 1,000 per year among coxib users.

In one study, researchers looked at opioid pain relievers, including codeine, hydrocodone, oxycodone, propoxyphene and tramadol and found varying incidence of adverse effects. For example, among those taking codeine, the risk of cardiovascular events was increased.

"This study's findings do not agree with a commonly held belief that all opioids are associated with similar risk," the authors write. "The risks were not explained by the dosage being prescribed and did not vary across a range of sensitivity analyses."
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Alarm Clock

Study Maps Chemical Residues in European Children's Diets

Pascale Santi
Guardian.co.uk.
Tue, 28 Dec 2010 14:35 UTC
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© PAA study of food bought from a French supermarket, to form part of a balanced diet, showed an alarming number of chemical residues.
In a single day, a 10-year-old child in Europe may be exposed through food to 128 chemical residues of 81 different substances. Forty-two of these substances are classified as "possibly or probably carcinogens", and five as "certainly carcinogens". No fewer than 37 substances are endocrine disruptors (ED).

This is the conclusion of a study published this month by a partnership of environmental groups based in France and Belgium: Générations Futures, the Health and Environment Alliance (Heal), Réseau Environnement Santé (RES) and WWF-France. The authors of the study bought food in supermarkets in Oise, north of Paris, and in the French capital, sufficient to give a typical 10-year-old three meals a day and a snack. The food was not organic but was consistent with a balanced diet.

The authors then asked independent laboratories to analyse the food, checking for possible residues of pesticides, dioxins, heavy metals, plasticisers (phthalates, bisphenol A or perfluorinated compounds [PFC]) and for food additives.
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Beaker

So Young and So Many Pills

Anna Wilde Mathews
Wall Street Journal
Tue, 28 Dec 2010 12:55 UTC
pills
© unknown
More than 25% of Kids and Teens in the U.S. Take Prescriptions on a Regular Basis

Gage Martindale, who is 8 years old, has been taking a blood-pressure drug since he was a toddler. "I want to be healthy, and I don't want things in my heart to go wrong," he says.

And, of course, his mom is always there to check Gage's blood pressure regularly with a home monitor, and to make sure the second-grader doesn't skip a dose of his once-a-day enalapril.

These days, the medicine cabinet is truly a family affair. More than a quarter of U.S. kids and teens are taking a medication on a chronic basis, according to Medco Health Solutions Inc., the biggest U.S. pharmacy-benefit manager with around 65 million members. Nearly 7% are on two or more such drugs, based on the company's database figures for 2009.

Doctors and parents warn that prescribing medications to children can be problematic. There is limited research available about many drugs' effects in kids. And health-care providers and families need to be vigilant to assess the medicines' impact, both intended and not. Although the effects of some medications, like cholesterol-lowering statins, have been extensively researched in adults, the consequences of using such drugs for the bulk of a patient's lifespan are little understood.
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Pills

Farm Animals Get 80 Percent of Antibiotics Sold in U.S.

Maryn McKenna
The Wired
Fri, 24 Dec 2010 13:59 UTC
pillsforcattle
© The Wired
Two weeks ago, I broke the news of a new FDA report that estimated for the first time the amount of antibiotics sold in the United States every year for use in agriculture: 28.8 million pounds.

That long-awaited report didn't answer a crucial question: What volume of antibiotics are sold in the United States each year for human use. It's a crucial question because, in answer to concerns about antibiotic resistance arising on farms, the answer has always been that human medicine is equally culpable because it uses similar volumes of antibiotics.

The only research that has attempted to answer that question is contained in a decade-old report by the Union of Concerned Scientists that put the proportion of antibiotics going to animals at 70 percent of the U.S. total.

That UCS report and estimate are a decade old not because no one has cared about the topic, but because accurate updated figures have been so hard to get. So we owe a special holiday thank-you to the researchers at the Center for a Livable Future, who decided the release of the FDA report justified another attempt to get the numbers straight. They succeeded.
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Attention

A license to kill: Israeli products with so called 'harmless' levels to be labled 'gluten-free'

Judy Siegel-Itzkovich
The Jerusalem Post
Tue, 28 Dec 2010 03:35 UTC
no gluten
© Unknown
Until now, any amount forced manufacturers to label product as having gluten, making it difficult for celiac patients to find food.

Food products that have a maximum of 20 parts per million (PPM) of gluten - which according to experts is not enough to cause abdominal and other problems in celiac patients - will soon be labelled as having "No Gluten."

Until now, any amount present would force manufacturers to label the product as having gluten, thus making it very difficult for celiac patients to find processed food they could safely eat.

One out of 75 Israelis has celiac disease, and many of them are unaware of it.

Celiac disease is an autoimmune disorder of the small intestine that occurs in genetically predisposed people of all ages from babyhood onward. Symptoms include chronic diarrhea, children's failure to thrive and fatigue, but in some people, the symptoms are not evident.
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Cow Skull

Crops absorb pharmaceuticals from sewage sludge spread on farmlands

David Gutierrez
Natural News
Mon, 27 Dec 2010 23:34 UTC
pharmaceuticals from sewage sludge
© Unknown
Agricultural crops can absorb pharmaceuticals found in the water used to irrigate them or the sewage sludge used to fertilize them, according to a study conducted by researchers from the University of Toledo-Ohio and published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.

When humans consume pharmaceuticals, active traces of those drugs are excreted in their feces and urine. Modern treatment methods for water and sewage do nothing to remove these biologically active chemicals.

Previous studies have shown that crops grown directly in animal manure can absorb veterinary drugs, and that cabbages grown hydroponically can absorb human drugs. To simulate more natural agricultural conditions, researchers grew soybeans -- the second most widely planted crop in the United States -- in regular soil. Half the crops were fertilized with solid waste, while the other half were irrigated with chemical-spiked water. In order to simulate the reclaimed sewage or wastewater commonly used in industrial agriculture, the researchers spiked water and waste with the drugs carbamazepine (an anticonvulsant), diphenhydramine (Benadryl) and fluoxetine (Prozac), along with the common antimicrobial chemicals triclosan and triclocarban.
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