Health & WellnessS


Attention

Fluoride in Water Linked to Lower IQ in Children


prnewswire.com
Tue, 21 Dec 2010 15:15 UTC
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Is this the end of water fluoridation?

Exposure to fluoride may lower children's intelligence says a study pre-published in Environmental Health Perspectives, a publication of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

Fluoride is added to 70% of U.S. public drinking water supplies.

According to Paul Connett, Ph.D., director of the Fluoride Action Network, "This is the 24th study that has found this association, but this study is stronger than the rest because the authors have controlled for key confounding variables and in addition to correlating lowered IQ with levels of fluoride in the water, the authors found a correlation between lowered IQ and fluoride levels in children's blood. This brings us closer to a cause and effect relationship between fluoride exposure and brain damage in children."
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Pills

The Year in Pills

Martha Rosenberg
Counterpunch
Fri, 24 Dec 2010 14:55 UTC
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2010 will go down as the year the diet pill Meridia and pain pill Darvon were withdrawn from the market and the heart-attack associated diabetes drug Avandia was severely restricted.

But it was also the year the Justice Department filed the first criminal, not civil, charges against a drug company executive. Lauren Stevens, a former VP and assistant general counsel at GlaxoSmithKline, hid some 1,000 instances of GSK-paid doctors illegally promoting Wellbutrin to other doctors, say authorities.

It was also the year prominent psychiatrists Charles Nemeroff and Alan Schatzberg were accused of writing an entire book for GSK called Recognition and Treatment of Psychiatric Disorders: A Psychopharmacology Handbook for Primary Care.
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Nuke

Did the Atom Bomb Test Fallout Cause Cancer?

Dr. Samuel Epstein
Huffington Post
Thu, 23 Dec 2010 14:12 UTC
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The huge mushroom clouds from atom bomb tests of the 1950s and 1960s are an unforgettable part of the American saga. The tests were cloaked in rhetoric typical of the Cold War, i.e. they were needed to achieve "superiority" over the Soviets in the event of a nuclear war.

But all the patriotic nuclear talk couldn't prevent widespread concern that nuclear war would kill tens of millions. But many were also troubled by fallout in the mushroom clouds, which contained huge amounts of over 100 deadly radioactive chemicals that traveled through the air across the continental U.S. Precipitation brought this fallout back to earth - and into the food chain and human bodies.

Concerns became so great that scientists and citizens began calling for studies of how much fallout was entering people's bodies, and how much harm it was causing - especially to the highly-sensitive fetuses, infants, and children. Dr. Herman Kalckar of the National Institutes of Health published an article in August 1958, calling for a baby tooth "census" - a program of collecting teeth and testing them in laboratories for fallout levels. In particular, Kalckar suggested that Strontium-90 be measured.
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Attention

City of Houston Shuts Down Two Radioactive Water Wells

Mark Greenblatt
KHou News
Thu, 23 Dec 2010 11:23 UTC
A radioactive water well that is controlled by the City of Houston, and that serves residents of Jersey Village, is no longer being used, according to the communications director for Houston Mayor Annise Parker.


On Monday, a KHOU-TV investigation revealed Jersey Village water well #3 was one of 10 water wells identified by recent federal tests as having tested high for a particularly damaging form of radiation called alpha radiation.

As recently as two weeks ago, city officials had said that same well, and nine others across the city, remained online and "available for use," even after being identified in a draft report by the United States Geological Survey as testing high for radioactive contaminants that are known to immediately increase risks for cancer.

In addition, the city says it is no longer using Spring Branch water well #6. That well was found to have smaller levels of radiation by the draft USGS report, but not enough to approach the legal limit. Instead, the federal agency found it had tested double the legal limit for arsenic, another carcinogen that can cause cancer and other ill health effects.
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People

Blue-green algae tested for treating ALS


University of South Florida
Tue, 21 Dec 2010 11:31 UTC
Nutritional supplementation with Spirulina, a nutrient-rich, blue-green algae, appeared to provide neuroprotective support for dying motor neurons in a mouse model of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, University of South Florida neuroscientists have found. Although more research is needed, they suggest that a spirulina-supplemented diet may provide clinical benefits for ALS patients.

A spirulina dietary supplement was shown to delay the onset of motor symptoms and disease progression, reducing inflammatory markers and motor neuron death in a G93A mouse model of ALS. Spirulina, an ancient food source used by the Aztecs, may have a dual antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effect on motor neurons, the researchers said.
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Alarm Clock

Salinas, California: The Salad Bowl of Pesticides

Sheila Kaplan
politicsdaily.com
Wed, 22 Dec 2010 13:24 UTC
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Salinas Valley, California - Locals call this place the world's salad bowl. Dole, Naturipe and Fresh Express are here, where much of the global fruit and vegetable trade emerges in neat green fields just over the hills from the Pacific Coast.

The difficulties facing migrant workers who plant and pick the crops is an old story. But in Salinas, a new story is emerging - one with serious implications for the rest of the country and with an ending that has yet to be written.

It is here that University of California, Berkeley public health professor Brenda Eskenazi and her colleagues have spent the past 12 years studying mothers and children who are exposed to pesticides used in the fields.

The Center for Health Assessment of Mothers and Children of Salinas (CHAMACOS) is a joint project of UC Berkeley, the Natividad Medical Center, Clinica de Salud Del Valle de Salinas and other community organizations. Its goal is to assess exposure to pesticides and other pollutants in pregnant women and young children to determine the effects on their health, and to try to prevent contact with the chemicals.
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Beaker

Too Little Too Late: EPA Builds List of Potentially Dangerous Chemicals

Sheila Kaplan
Politics Daily
Wed, 22 Dec 2010 20:58 UTC
Home Chemicals
© Julie Snider, Lisa Hill, Investigative Reporting WorkshopChemical exposure can damage the developing brain and nervous system.

As the rates of learning disabilities, autism and related conditions rise, the Environmental Protection Agency is preparing to release a roster of the pollutants (see abridged list below) likely to contribute to these or other neurological disorders.

In an ongoing, three-year effort, an EPA team has determined which developmental neurotoxicants -- chemicals that damage a fetal and infant brain -- may pose the biggest risk to the American public.

Some compounds on the EPA's list are ubiquitous in household products, drinking water, medicine, and within the environment. They range from cadmium, used to etch colorful cartoons onto children's glasses, to flame retardants used to fireproof upholstered furniture.
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Cheeseburger

You are what your father ate: Genetic predisposition, or how diet defines who we are as species


University of Massachusetts Medical School
Thu, 23 Dec 2010 16:33 UTC
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© Unknown
Scientists at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and the University of Texas at Austin have uncovered evidence that environmental influences experienced by a father can be passed down to the next generation, "reprogramming" how genes function in offspring. A new study published this week in Cell shows that environmental cues - in this case, diet - influence genes in mammals from one generation to the next, evidence that until now has been sparse. These insights, coupled with previous human epidemiological studies, suggest that paternal environmental effects may play a more important role in complex diseases such as diabetes and heart disease than previously believed.

"Knowing what your parents were doing before you were conceived is turning out to be important in determining what disease risk factors you may be carrying," said Oliver J. Rando, MD, PhD, associate professor of biochemistry & molecular pharmacology at UMMS and principal investigator for the study, which details how paternal diet can increase production of cholesterol synthesis genes in first-generation offspring.

The human genome is often described as the set of instructions that govern the development and functioning of life. It's not surprising, then, that most contemporary genetic research focuses on understanding and cataloging how mutations and changes to our DNA - the basis of those "instructions" - cause disease and impact health. A number of recent studies, however, have begun to draw attention to the role epigenetic inheritance - inherited changes in gene expression caused by mechanisms other than changes in the underlying DNA sequence - may play in a host of illnesses. "A major and underappreciated aspect of what is transmitted from parent to child is ancestral environment," said Dr. Rando. "Our findings suggest there are many ways that parents can 'tell' their children things."
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Red Flag

Consumer Reports Studies BPA in the Food Supply


Consumer Reports
Wed, 10 Nov 2010 16:10 UTC
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Concern over canned foods

Our tests find a wide range of Bisphenol A in soups, juice, and more

The chemical Bisphenol A, which has been used for years in clear plastic bottles and food-can liners, has been restricted in Canada and some U.S. states and municipalities because of potential health effects. The Food and Drug Administration will soon decide what it considers a safe level of exposure to Bisphenol A (BPA), which some studies have linked to reproductive abnormalities and a heightened risk of breast and prostate cancers, diabetes, and heart disease.

Now Consumer Reports' latest tests of canned foods, including soups, juice, tuna, and green beans, have found that almost all of the 19 name-brand foods we tested contain some BPA. The canned organic foods we tested did not always have lower BPA levels than nonorganic brands of similar foods analyzed. We even found the chemical in some products in cans that were labeled "BPA-free."

The debate revolves around just what is a safe level of the chemical to ingest and whether it should be in contact with food. Federal guidelines currently put the daily upper limit of safe exposure at 50 micrograms of BPA per kilogram of body weight. But that level is based on experiments done in the 1980s rather than hundreds of more recent animal and laboratory studies indicating serious health risks could result from much lower doses of BPA.
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Attention

Monsanto's Neotame Molecule Allowed in USDA Certified Organic Foods

Mary Nash Stoddard
foodfreedom.wordpress.com
Wed, 22 Dec 2010 15:43 UTC
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© foodfreedom.wordpress.comNeotame is an artificial sweetener made by NutraSweet that is between 7,000 and 13,000 times sweeter than sucrose (table sugar). The product is attractive to food manufacturers as its use greatly lowers the cost of production compared to using sugar or high fructose corn syrup (due to the lower quantities needed to achieve the same sweetening)
Neotame - Hidden Danger in Holiday Food Supply

Everyone wants to indulge a sweet tooth at this festive time of year, without suffering the inevitable consequences of weight gain. But, be aware of the hidden (not listed on ingredient labels) dangers of Neotame sweetener in almost everything consumed by humans, and now even in feed for livestock raised for human consumption.

In 1998, Monsanto applied for FDA approval for a monster molecule, "based on the aspartame formula" with one critical addition: 3-dimethylbutyl [listed on EPA's most hazardous chemical list]. Neotame is touted as being 13,000 times sweeter than sugar.

On July 5, 2002 - Monsanto's Neotame molecule was approved by the US FDA over formally registered objections of the Aspartame Consumer Safety Network and others. (Long term effects on humans are unknown.) Read the full release on The Aspartame Consumer Safety Network.
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